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Head of the United Nations Refugee Agency lebanon The move comes as the United States lifts sweeping sanctions, it said on Thursday Syria Could encourage more refugees to return to their countries.
The US Senate voted on Wednesday to permanently lift the so-called Caesar Act restrictions after the presidential administration donald trump The penalty had previously been temporarily waived by executive order. The vote came as part of the passage of the country’s annual defense spending bill. Trump is expected to sign the final repeal on Thursday.
An estimated 400,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon since the ouster of the former Syrian president. bashar asad Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Lebanon representative, said in December 2024, after almost 14 years of civil war, there were about 1 million people left in the country. Of those, about 636,000 are officially registered with the refugee agency.
The United Nations Refugee Agency reports that there are more than 1 million refugees and almost 2 million internally displaced in total Syrian Have returned to their homes since the fall of Assad.
Refugees returning from neighboring countries are eligible for a cash payment of $600 per family upon their return, but many are returning to destroyed homes and no work opportunities, so the cash doesn’t go very far. Without jobs and rebuilding, many people may have to leave again.
Aid provided so far by international organizations to help the Syrian people begin reconstruction has been “relatively small in scale compared to the extreme needs,” Billings said, but lifting U.S. sanctions “could make a big difference.”
The World Bank estimates that rebuilding homes and infrastructure damaged and destroyed in Syria’s civil war will cost $216 billion.
“So what is needed now in Syria is huge amounts of money in terms of reconstruction and private sector investment that will create jobs,” which could be encouraged by the lifting of sanctions, Billing said.
Lawmakers imposed sweeping Caesar Act sanctions on Syria in 2019 to punish Assad for human rights abuses during the country’s civil war.
Despite the temporary lifting of restrictions by executive order, there has been little movement on reopening. Advocates of permanent repeal argued that as long as there is a threat of a return to sanctions, international companies are unlikely to invest in projects needed to rebuild the country.
New refugees face difficulties
While there has been a steady flow of returnees over the past year, other Syrians have fled the country since Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad. Many of them are members of religious minorities who fear being targeted by the new authorities – particularly members of the Alawite sect, to which Assad belonged, and Shias who fear being targeted in revenge attacks by Iran and the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah due to the support they provided to Assad during the war.
Hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed in sectarian violence off the Syrian coast in March.
Although the situation has since calmed down, Alawites continue to report sporadic sectarian attacks, including incidents of abduction and sexual assault of women.
Billing said about 112,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon since the fall of Assad. At a time of reduced international aid, new refugees have received little assistance and generally have no legal status in the country.
“Their main need, one of the things they raise with us all the time, is documentation because they have no papers to prove they are in Lebanon, which makes it difficult for them to move around,” Billing said.
While some have returned to Syria after the situation in their areas calmed down, he said, “Many people are very afraid to return to Syria because what they fled were very violent events.”