Syrian refugees in bourj Hammoud, waiting to board buses to go back to Syria. Photo Patricia Khoder
It’s 6 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28, and people are gathering at the stadium in Bourj Hammoud, one of many departure points for buses organized by General Security that will carry refugees towards the Syrian-Lebanese border. For months now, General Security has been organizing these returns. Groups of hundreds of refugees have put their names down on lists to be vetted by the Syrian regime. Once approved, they are able to go back.
Suitcases, plastic bags and cardboard boxes are piled up on the pavement while families and single men wait in front of the General Security office in Bourj Hammoud. Most of the people returning decided to go back with a heavy heart, to escape the misery of life as a Syrian refugee in Lebanon. But risks await them across the border. Chief among them is that all men between the ages 18 and 40 will become de facto reservists in the Syrian army.
Ali, 33 from Raqqa province, is waiting to board a bus. He has decided to enlist in the army and says that he is only relying on God. Ali is accompanied by three friends from his hometown who are around the same age. They too know that they will have to join the army.
The refugees waiting in Bourj Hammoud came from all over Lebanon: Nabaa, Sabra, Aley, Dbayeh, Tripoli. Most of them will first head to the Masnaa border crossing before traveling to Damascus and its suburbs. Fifteen will travel on another bus to Tripoli and across the northern border.
General Security officers treat the refugees well, helping them carry their children onto the bus and patiently checking their names against the lists of people approved to return home by the Syrian authorities. But despite the courteous treatment and the reassuring presence of representatives from the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, the return is not a joyous or happy occasion. Instead, the anxiety about what awaits them shows in the men’s eyes and voices when they speak about the Syrian army and is revealed by the women’s tears when they express concern for their son or husband who is traveling with them.
"No more opponents or loyalists in Syria"
The only refugees who will speak about the security situation in Syria request to do so anonymously. "Sometimes they take the men as soon as the bus arrives at the Syrian border. Other times, customs officers would let everyone pass,” a woman from the suburbs of Damascus says.
She is concerned that her husband will be forced to join the army, but their 14-year-old son has not attended school in Lebanon where the family has lived for the past four years. "I had to work to live, help the family pay rent, buy food," the teenager says, sounding like an adult despite his young age, while his father checks with General Security to see if his family has been given the green light to go back.
Mashur, in his thirties with a mustache, kisses his four-year-old son as if it might be the last time. He has lived in Sabra’s refugee camp in Beirut for three and a half years. "I am a deserter, but I want to return to Syria. The names of my wife and my son are on the list of departure, but not mine,” he says. “I have a solution: I’m going to surrender to the Syrian authorities. I will go to the (Syrian) embassy in Hazmieh."
Originally from Idlib, Mashur lived in Damascus for a long time. He is not afraid, he says, and will rejoin the army if the Syrian authorities allow him to do so.
"No choice"
"There is no work in Lebanon. We can no longer afford to eat or pay the rent. We are going home because we do not want to end up begging in the street,” a man named Mohammed says bitterly.
Mohammed is a carpenter and has lived in Lebanon with his family for 13 years, since well before the war in Syria began. When he and his family return to Aleppo, where he is from, his 19-year-old son will join the Syrian army. "I hope God will protect him,” his mother sighs.
Many of the families L’Orient-Le Jour spoke to said they will not return to their villages because their homes have been destroyed. Instead, they plan to settle in large cities or their suburbs, such as Damascus or Aleppo, where some of the families have relatives who are living in rented houses.
"There are no more opponents or loyalists in Syria. In Lebanon, it is now very difficult to find work and rents keep increasing. That's why so many of us decide to go back,” a man from Homs says, who probably once believed that it was possible to change the regime in his country.
The man came to see his friends leave on the bus. "Yes, we are aware that they might be enlisted in the army or disappear when they return to Syria. We are also aware that they can die in combat. But they have no choice. God only knows what their future will be like,” he sighs.
The buses that roll out of Bourj Hammoud mark the second “voluntary return” organized so far this year. Several thousand Syrian refugees have already gone back as part of these operations, despite the uncertainties regarding their safety. According to numbers given by UNHCR, Lebanon hosts just over 970,000 officially registered Syrian refugees.
(This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 1rst of March)
