EuroMed Rights was interviewed by Al Jazeera and Daraj on the risks of deportation and smear campaigns targeting Syrian refugees. We were also part of MTV’s debate programme Sarelwa2et on the same topic.
On 2 May 2023, a group of 39 migrants from Syria were stranded on an island in the Evros River between Syria and Turkey. They were reportedly abandoned in this dangerous area by the smugglers who picked them up from Turkey. The group, consisting of 13 men, 11 women and 15 children, wanted to seek asylum in Greece. They notified Alarm Phone on 02 May 2023 that some of the people on board were not in good health and that they had no food or water. They were rescued on 04 May 2023 and were taken care of by the Greek Red Cross.
On 1 May 2023, a meeting took place in Amman between the Syrian government and the foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. This meeting follows a previous meeting held in Saudi Arabia last month. This is the first meeting of this scale since 2011. The voluntary and safe return of Syrian refugees was mentioned as a “priority“. According to the UNHCR, 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in neighbouring countries. According to Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, “We focused on the refugee issue and agreed on mechanisms to start the voluntary return of refugees in coordination with the United Nations”.
More than 50 Syrian refugees were deported in mid-April 2023, responding to a tightening of measures against Syrian refugees in the country. In coordination with Damascus, Lebanese military forces are making arrests, mainly in Mount Lebanon and Beirut.
A Syrian refugee living in Lebanon was found dead on Friday 28 April 2023. The first hypothesis explaining his death is suicide. The 26-year-old man, a refugee in Lebanon since 2017, killed himself to avoid being forced to return to Syria where he was to perform his mandatory military service. At the same time, the young man was threatened with deportation to Lebanon, a symbol of the growing anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon.
