Special Report: Frontline Military Reporter Brings Exclusive on Syria’s ACTUAL Wartime Refugees

A television program about modern conflicts and wars that are over, ongoing, or about to start. I'm Evgeny Poddubny, a VGTRK military reporter.

The War

A television program about modern conflicts and wars that are over, ongoing, or about to start. I'm Evgeny Poddubny, a VGTRK military reporter.

War with Evgeny Poddubny

In southwestern Syria, government troops have liberated the territory of three provinces from rebels: Daraa, Quneitra, and As-Suwayda. We covered this topic in our previous reports. The majority of the country's territory is now fully under government control. For the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the Syrian Foreign Ministry is calling on Syrian refugees to return home. About 5 million Syrian citizens are currently located in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. We found out what kind of conditions Syrian refugees are living in and whether they want to return to their homeland. Our team visited both Jordan and Lebanon.

 

Here's what we saw.

The Syrian refugees staying here in Lebanon, as well as in Jordan and Turkey, can be divided into two categories. The first category includes those who, during the seven years of the Syrian Civil War, have managed to start a business and buy property here. Naturally, they don't plan to go back. Their decision has nothing to do with the war and is based on economic factors. However, the majority of refugees fall into the second category. They're staying in camps like this one and would like to go home. Many of their houses escaped the war's destruction.

Compared to other refugee camps in the Middle East, this one is pretty small. It's located near the Lebanon–Syria border. There're about 400 people here, or fewer than 100 families. They're staying in makeshift shelters such as tents and improvised sheds which are pretty much made out of garbage. In the near future, these refugees hope to return to Syria, to the areas where the war has ended.

Firas is ready to pack his few belongings. He found out that his house near Damascus remained intact. He showed us his shelter, which he seems to have gotten used to.

Firas: "You can see the conditions we live in. I can't exactly call this normal, but we try to at least keep this place clean. We turned this area into a kitchen and equipped it ourselves".

Water is delivered to the camp free of charge on a monthly basis, as part of a UN humanitarian aid program. However, it never lasts for more than four days. Refugees have to pay for the remaining water supplies themselves. They have electricity, but there's no sewer system here. The people staying in the camp work on nearby farms. They have to work hard for low pay.

Over the past two months, around 6,000 refugees returned from Lebanon to Syria. Had it not been for issues with paperwork, this figure would be even higher. It's going to take some time before these issues can be resolved. A refugee assistance plan is already in effect. The Lebanese and Syrian governments, in cooperation with Russian officials, have joined their efforts to solve the problem.

Here you can see that Syrian citizens have begun to return to their homes. There used to be more tents here. When the people left, the shelters were removed.

This lady and her family didn't flee from the war. Back in 2011, they had no idea they'd end up staying in Lebanon for seven years.

"It's now safe in our village near Homs. We came to Lebanon to make some extra money, but when the war broke out, we decided to stay. Once they send us buses and retrieve our documents, we'll head home".

Now that the government has gained full control over three provinces as a result of a successful operation carried out in southern Syria, the number of people expressing their desire to return home has dramatically increased. In addition, a large section off of the Daraa Province was liberated from illegal armed groups by means of negotiations conducted by Russian military officials. As a result, the local infrastructure and houses were not damaged by warfare and people can return home.

Here's the Jordan–Syria border. There're about 1 million refugees from neighboring Syria in the kingdom. The majority of them are staying in the region bordering the Daraa Province. There're three large camps in northern Jordan. In a way, the largest one of them has become a symbol of the refugee crisis.

We're in Zaatari, Jordan, the largest refugee camp in the Middle East. A few years ago, the population of this camp, or rather this city, was about 100,000 people. Now, there are about 80,000 people living here. The majority of Syrian citizens fled from the south of the Syrian Arab Republic when rebels took control over the region in 2013. Now that the government troops have regained control over the three provinces and secured the area, refugees can return home.

They can, but not everyone wants to. Zaatari does feel like a city. There's a central shopping street, numerous shops, 32 schools, several hospitals, and plenty of potable water in the camp. And most importantly, many refugees living here didn't flee from the war as such. They're here because they supported Bashar al-Assad's rivals, and not necessarily the so-called moderate armed opposition groups. People who lost their homes to war, families of members of illegal armed groups, and refugees who support radical Islamists all live here side by side. Hence, the information people receive doesn't always line up with reality. For instance, Bilal, a merchant, fled from the Syrian city of Daraa. He still doesn't believe that it's safe back home.

Bilal, a merchant: "The bottom line is, we have water and a roof over our heads. We are living in a tent and have jobs. If we can at least have the same living conditions at home, we'll go back".

The conditions there are already better than in the camp. Ever since Syrian troops regained control over the part of Daraa occupied by rebels, there haven't been any more mortar attacks. Besides, the city didn't suffer that much damage. The level of comfort would certainly be higher in a house than in a tent in Zaatari. According to Jordanian politicians dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis, there're two groups of Syrian refugees who are not willing to return to Syria. Those in the first group are not in a rush to get home because they have committed crimes and violated Syrian laws. Low-income individuals who have no home or jobs fall into the second group. People like that benefit from staying in Jordan, where the status of a refugee entitles them to government assistance.

According to Fathi, he belongs to the second category. He wasn't well-off before the war; his life in Jordan isn't easy either, but he's used to it by now. It's never easy to adjust to a new place.

Fathi: "We've been living next to the border from the day the war started. I'm a laborer and can barely provide for my family. Our friends let us stay in their apartment almost rent-free. So we're doing okay and don't plan on going back yet".

There's also another reason. Some members of international humanitarian organizations advise refugees against moving back. They use various arguments, trying to convince refugees that rebels might return to Syria or that the Syrian law-enforcement authorities might be interested in them. In reality, they're simply trying to maintain the flow of funds that refugee aid organizations receive. This trend is visible in both Jordan and Lebanon.

"Our Jordanian brothers helped us out when we needed it. Life in the camp isn't easy. Now we need to figure out whether it's safe back home and what state our houses are in. If everything's fine, we'll come back".

The more refugees return home, the greater the atmosphere in the camps changes. The governments of the countries hosting the largest numbers of Syrian refugees support this process.

As for the strained relations, which are very common in the Middle East, Russia could be the perfect mediator. Khaled Ramadan, Deputy Secretary General of the Jordanian Parliament Labor Board, comes from a family of refugees: his father moved from Palestine to Jordan. He thinks that Russia can help effectively solve the problem of the return of Syrian refugees. Just a couple of years ago, local politicians didn't think it would be possible.

Khaled Ramadan, member of the Jordanian Parliament, Deputy Secretary General of the Labor Board: "We support the idea of Russia's involvement in regional issues. And it's not just because we like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but because it's in the best interest of Syria and Jordan. We'd like to see a balance of power in the region. It's about our economic interests. We need to balance out the USA's presence and activity".

The Syrian government has already begun to restore damaged infrastructure, construction companies, and buildings. Syrian security services patrol areas that were temporarily under control of rebels. The police and the civil administrations also have a lot of work to do. It's clear that no attempts by Syria's rivals to influence the flow of information will be able to keep the refugees in their tents when nothing stands in the way of their desire to return home.

Evgeny Poddubny, Aleksandr Pushin, Stanislav Yelovsky, Kirill Bykov, Ekaterina Shcherbakova