On World Refugee Day: Half Syrian Population Unable to Safely Return to Syria

A Syrian girl, displaced with her family from Deir Ezzor, looks at the camera inside the damaged building where she is living in Syria's northern city of Raqqa on June 18, 2022. (AFP)
A Syrian girl, displaced with her family from Deir Ezzor, looks at the camera inside the damaged building where she is living in Syria's northern city of Raqqa on June 18, 2022. (AFP)
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On World Refugee Day: Half Syrian Population Unable to Safely Return to Syria

A Syrian girl, displaced with her family from Deir Ezzor, looks at the camera inside the damaged building where she is living in Syria's northern city of Raqqa on June 18, 2022. (AFP)
A Syrian girl, displaced with her family from Deir Ezzor, looks at the camera inside the damaged building where she is living in Syria's northern city of Raqqa on June 18, 2022. (AFP)

Refugees and internally displaced persons, who now comprise half the Syrian population, will be unable to safely return to Syria until it achieves a political transition towards democracy, a report by a human rights group has stated.

According the Syrian Network for Human Rights, atrocious violations are still ongoing in Syria, committed by various parties to the conflict and the controlling forces.

It stressed that these primary violations have been the direct cause of the forced displacement of millions of Syrians.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that nearly 13.4 million Syrians are now either internally displaced or refugees, including nearly 6.7 million internally displaced, some of whom have been displaced more than once, and nearly 6.6 million refugees, the vast majority of whom are in neighboring countries.

The report notes that some of the violations committed against Syrians have affected many refugees who were forced to return to unsafe areas under the regime’s control due to harsh conditions in the countries of asylum.

Some of the returning refugees have been subjected to many types of violations upon their return, most notably arbitrary arrest, torture, and enforced disappearance.

Since early 2014 until June 2022, the SNHR has documented at least 3,057 cases of arbitrary arrest, including against 244 children and 203 women (adult female) of the refugees who returned from countries of asylum or residence to their areas of residence in Syria (with the vast majority of these returning from Lebanon).

The regime released 1,874 of these detainees, while the rest remain in detention, with 813 of them classified as forcibly disappeared. The report also recorded at least 72 cases of sexual violence against returning refugees during the same period.

Some countries seeking to return refugees are attempting to justify their position by citing the “presidential amnesty” issued by the regime earlier this year.

However, the SNHR has confirmed that only about 539 people have been released from the regime’s various civil and military prisons and security branches in the Syrian governorates between May 1 and June 13. The released included 61 women and 16 people who were children at the time of their arrest.

The regime is still detaining some 132,000 other people and has launched new waves of arbitrary arrests since issuing the amnesty, detaining 57 Syrians.

The report stressed that attempts by several European countries to deport refugees are a violation of international law. These include the British government’s attempt to transfer a group of refugees, including Syrian refugees, to Rwanda.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said Rwanda is an unsafe country, and that its own citizens and other residents suffer from serious human rights violations.

The group called on the governments of countries sheltering Syrian refugees to stop their constant threat to deport them, stressing that this an additional source of psychological anxiety, a threat to their financial stability, and disruption to their social integration processes.

It urged the UNHCR to take clear, repeated, and public positions in responding to governments that constantly threaten and manipulate refugees according to domestic political interests.



Gaza Ceasefire Talks Held Up by Israel Withdrawal Plans

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Gaza Ceasefire Talks Held Up by Israel Withdrawal Plans

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza are being held up by Israel's proposals to keep troops in the territory, two Palestinian sources with knowledge of the discussions told AFP on Saturday.

Delegations from both sides began discussions in Qatar last Sunday to try to agree on a temporary halt to the 21-month conflict sparked by Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Both Hamas and Israel have said that 10 living hostages who were taken that day and are still in captivity would be released if an agreement for a 60-day ceasefire were reached, reported Reuters.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he hoped to clinch a deal "in a few days", which could then lead to talks for a more permanent end to hostilities.

But one Palestinian source, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the talks, said Israel's refusal to accept Hamas's demand to withdraw all of its troops from Gaza was holding back progress.

Another said mediators had asked both sides to postpone the talks until the arrival of US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Doha.

"The negotiations in Doha are facing a setback and complex difficulties due to Israel's insistence, as of Friday, on presenting a map of withdrawal, which is actually a map of redeployment and repositioning of the Israeli army rather than a genuine withdrawal," one Palestinian source said.

The source said Israel was proposing to maintain military forces in more than 40 percent of the Palestinian territory, forcing hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians into a small area near the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, they added.

"Hamas's delegation will not accept the Israeli maps... as they essentially legitimize the reoccupation of approximately half of the Gaza Strip and turn Gaza into isolated zones with no crossings or freedom of movement," the source said.

A second Palestinian source accused the Israeli delegation of having no authority, and "stalling and obstructing the agreement in order to continue the war of extermination".

- Latest strikes -

The Gaza war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized, 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

At least 57,823 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Gaza's civil defense agency said at least 14 Palestinians were killed in the latest wave of Israeli strikes across the territory on Saturday.

More than 30 people were killed on Friday, including 10 people who were waiting for aid handouts, the agency said.

The Israeli military on Saturday said it had attacked "approximately 250 terrorist targets throughout the Gaza Strip" in the last 48 hours.

Targets included "terrorists, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional terrorist infrastructure sites", it added.

Two previous ceasefires -- a week-long truce beginning in late November 2023 and a two-month one from mid-January this year -- led to the release of 105 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The second Palestinian source said "some progress" had been made in the latest talks on plans for releasing Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and getting more aid to Gaza.

Netanyahu, who is under domestic and international pressure to end the war, said this week that neutralizing Hamas as a security threat was a prerequisite for any long-term ceasefire talks.

That included the group giving up weapons, he said, warning that failure to do so would mean Israel would have to do so by force.