U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2000 - Syria

At the end of 1999, Syria hosted approximately 379,200 refugees and asylum seekers in need of protection. They included 374,521 Palestinian refugees registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), about 3,500 non Palestinian refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and 1,169 asylum seekers pending a UNHCR status determination at year's end. Some 23,000 Iraqi nationals not registered with UNHCR also lived in Syria during 1999, many of whom may be refugees.

Conditions for refugees in Syria remain shrouded for several reasons: the lack of free speech, the absence of independent human rights monitoring organizations, a government-controlled press, and the intimidating presence of all-powerful state security forces and an omnipresent intelligence network.

Palestinian Refugees

Of the Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, some 109,315, about 29 percent, were living in camps. Palestinian refugees in Syria represented 10.3 percent of all UNRWA-registered refugees. Another 64,000 Palestinians living in Syria were not registered with UNRWA, according to the Palestine Liberation Organization's Refugee Affairs Department.

UNRWA's weakened financial state improved little in 1999. Since 1993, UNRWA has struggled to maintain its services for a growing refugee population with a roughly constant budget. Successive budgetary shortfalls have forced UNRWA to implement austerity measures that continued to severely strain its ability to assist Palestinian refugees in Syria during 1999.

Despite its weakened position, UNRWA continued to provide essential services in the fields of health care, education, infrastructure development, and emergency relief in 1999.

During the year, UNRWA operated 23 clinics that provided comprehensive medical care to Palestinian refugees, including mother and child health care and family planning services. Twelve of the clinics offered dental care.

UNRWA also contracted with eight Syrian private hospitals to provide hospital care in 1999, although funding shortages forced UNRWA to control strictly hospital referrals and the duration of hospital care. Because of the financial strain, UNRWA also began referring patients to less costly nonprofit hospitals in 1999.

During its 1998-99 reporting year, UNRWA completed construction of a new school building at El Mezzeh to replace unsafe classrooms and was building two other schools at the end of the reporting year. Nevertheless, the serious overcrowding in UNRWA schools continued, with 93.6 percent operating on double shifts, the highest percentage in any of UNRWA's fields of operation. Nor did UNRWA have the money to replace 11 dilapidated school buildings at year's end.

Although UNRWA replaced a malfunctioning sewage system in Neirab camp near Aleppo, refugee families continued to live in unsafe and decrepit former army barracks in Neirab because UNRWA lacked funds to build them adequate housing. During its 1998-99 reporting year, UNRWA provided funding to rebuild 37 houses belonging to families registered with its special hardship program. However, UNRWA identified 100 other houses that needed rebuilding.

UNRWA's funding shortage manifested itself in other ways during the year. Although the number of people registered with UNRWA's special hardship program had increased by 4.6 percent to 24,891 by June 1999, UNRWA did not have the funds to provide emergency cash assistance to the neediest of the needy, including refugee families whose homes had been damaged by fire or burned down.

Palestinian refugees residing in Syria generally did not report unusual difficulties traveling to and from Syria as they had in previous years, although Syria continued to restrict the entry of non-resident Palestinians. The Syrian authorities do not permit Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to enter Syria.

Non-Palestinian Refugees

Syria is neither a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention nor the 1967 Protocol. Therefore, non-Palestinian asylum seekers and refugees continued to register with UNHCR for assistance and protection during 1999. While citizens of Arab countries may enter Syria without visas, Iraqi and Somali nationals require a security clearance from the Syrian authorities to enter and remain in the country.

Although UNHCR registered 4,682 refugees in Syria at year's end, it estimated that only 3,500 actually remained in the country. Most refugees were from Iraq (1,688 persons), slightly more than half (884) living in El Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria. Significant numbers also came from Yemen (728), Somalia (391), Afghanistan (120), and Sudan (92).

During 1999, UNHCR decided upon the refugee applications of 5,162 persons, granting refugee status to 1,386 individuals, a 27 percent approval rate. UNHCR denied refugee status to 3,776 claimants during the year, and the cases of 1,169 asylum seekers were pending a decision at year's end.

Syria does not allow non-Palestinian refugees the right to employment, a restriction it reportedly enforces strictly. Unable to work legally, most UNHCR recognized refugees depend on limited financial assistance that UNHCR provides through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society and the Women's Association.

There were some signs that protection for asylum seekers and refugees marginally improved during the year. UNHCR said that Syrian authorities cooperated with the agency to ensure that refugees received protection and facilitated UNHCR visits to asylum seekers and refugees in detention. Nevertheless, Syria reportedly refouled to northern Iraq an undetermined number of Iraqi refugees, originally deported from Lebanon.

In previous years, Syria reportedly deported hundreds of persons with possible claims to refugee status without sufficiently reviewing the potential danger to individuals deported. During 1998, Syria refouled Iraqi, Somali, Libyan, and Algerian refugees.

Although Syria generally tolerates the presence of non-Palestinian refugees, it does not offer them the possibility for permanent asylum. Thus, UNHCR pursues resettlement for those it recognizes as refugees. Some 1,144 refugees – 913 Iraqis, 135 Sudanese, 29 Somalis, 27 Algerians, 21 Iranians, 13 Tunisians, and 6 of other nationalities – resettled from Syria during the year. Most went to the United States (832), followed by Canada (151), Australia (58), Norway (32), and Sweden (28). Six resettled in other countries.

Internal Displacement

Displaced Syrians had renewed hopes that they might soon return to their former homes in the Golan Heights as Syria resumed peace negotiations with Israel's newly elected government in the second half of 1999. Nevertheless, negotiations remained deadlocked at year's end: Syria maintained that it would only discuss security arrangements and other issues after Israel agreed unconditionally to withdraw from the Golan Heights; Israel said it would agree to relinquish the Golan only if it could first be satisfied that a peace deal would adequately provide for security and address other issues, such as access to water.

Except for some Druze villagers who stayed behind, most of the Syrian population of the Golan Heights fled in 1967. Estimates of their original numbers vary. Israel says that about 70,000 left; Syria puts the original number at 153,000, and says that the number has grown to almost 500,000, 32 years later.

After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Israel agreed to return a slice of territory along the eastern edge of the Golan Heights, extending to Kuneitra, the one-time capital of Golan Province, in return for the repatriation of Israeli POWs. Before leaving, however, the Israelis leveled the city with bulldozers and dynamite. Although its 53,000 displaced residents had been expected to return, President Assad said that the city was uninhabitable, and it remained empty.

The Syrian government did rebuild 10 villages in the territory adjacent to the Golan returned to Syria in 1973, where it resettled about 60,000 displaced Golan residents. The remaining Syrian displaced and their progeny, as many as 400,000 people in 1999, lived in government housing projects in the suburbs of Damascus, Dara, and Homs.

Stateless Kurds

Another little-known group outside Syria are 200,000 stateless Kurds in northeastern Syria. Although Syria has registered them, it denies them citizenship despite their strong claims. Consequently, they carry no passports and cannot travel outside Syria. In 1962, Syria said they were "alien infiltrators."

The Syrian government classifies the stateless Kurds either as "foreigners" or as maktoumeen, meaning "unregistered." The former are issued red identity documents, which prevent them from owning land, practicing certain professions, receiving food subsidies, being admitted to public hospitals, or having legally recognized marriages to Syrian citizens. The latter are issued no documents at all. Maktoumeen are the children (grandchildren, etc.) of "foreigners," including foreigners who marry women who are Syrian citizens.

In March 1999, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination singled out statelessness of Kurds in Syria as an issue of particular concern, recommending that the Syrian government do more to "protect the rights of all persons belonging to ethnic and national groups – notably the right to nationality and cultural self expression." It further called on the Syrian government to find an expeditious solution to the predicament of stateless Kurds in the country.