The Syrian refugees-left to their fate (original) (raw)

2019, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

The Syrian civil war that has been raging since March 2011 appears to be coming to an end, with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Asad, and his allies emerging victorious. The war began with a peaceful and nonviolent protest by peasants and residents of the country’s rural and peripheral regions, members of the Sunni community. In just a few weeks the protest turned into a popular uprising, then into a revolution and a bloody civil war between different ethnic and religious communities. The ferocious fighting has left behind nearly half a million dead, over two million injured, and several million homeless and displaced persons. The economic price of the fighting has also been extremely high. About three-quarters of Syria's economic infrastructure has been destroyed, so that it will take many years and 200-250 billions of dollars to reconstruct the country. No less significant than these grim figures is the data indicating that between 5 to 8 million Syrians fled or were expelled abroad, that is, between 1/4 to 1/3 of Syria’s pre-war population. It goes without saying that most, if not all, the Syrian refugees belonged either to the economic and social peripheries of Syrian society (mainly from the rural areas in Northern and Southern Syria or to the members of the economic elite or of the Christian minority. Thus, it will take considerable effort to get them to return to Syria or, alternatively, to absorb and integrate them into the countries where they have found refuge. At the same time, now that the fighting is about to end with the regime’s victory, there is nothing surprising about the fact that it shows no willingness to reabsorb the refugees back into their homes in Syria. After all, it was the regime that created the massive flight of Syrian citizens abroad by means of the systematic and unrestrained policies of ethnic or communal cleansing it initiated. This means that many of the refugees will never return to their homeland. If they are not allowed to settle in the places where they find themselves, then they will have to continue seeking a safe haven elsewhere for themselves and their families