BEIRUT: The UN’s top official on refugees pushed back against a proposed initiative that has gained recent traction to create “safe zones” in Syria for refugees, saying the country was “not the right place” for the initiative.
“Let’s not waste time planning safe zones that will not be set up because they will not be safe for people to go back,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees.
“Let us concentrate on making peace so that everywhere becomes safe. That should be the investment,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has floated safe zones as a substitute for resettling refugees in the US and elsewhere around the globe.
The president explored schemes with Jordanian King Abdallah in a face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Jordan is host to some 650,000 Syrian refugees.
Turkey and Lebanon, which both border Syria, are also pushing for safe zones across their borders. The two countries host 3.75 million refugees between them.
Grandi cited terrorism and the fragmentation of Syria and its warring parties as obstacles to creating working safe zones in the country.
Damascus has expressed its deep concern over the various proposals, saying they would have to be set up in coordination with the Syrian regime.
Trump plunged the international refugee system into crisis last week when he issued an executive order forbidding refugees to enter the US for 120 days.
Grandi called the executive order a “dangerous weakening” of the established international norms to protect refugees.
He spoke in Beirut a day after returning from a field mission to Syria. He said the war-torn country was “devastated” and likened many urban zones to “ghost cities.”
“These are people that flee from danger, they are not dangerous themselves,” he said of refugees. The six-year-long war has displaced half the country’s population.
Grandi criticized the US and Western nations for “not doing enough” to share the burden of resettling Syrian refugees.
“(Lebanon) hosted more than 1 million people in the last three years, why can’t rich countries host even a much smaller number?” he said.
Separately, Airstrikes killed at least 12 radical fighters in Idlib province in northwestern Syria on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Unidentified warplanes struck positions of the Jund Al-Aqsa group southeast of Idlib city, near the village of Sarmin, the British-based war monitoring group said.
It was unclear if those killed were from Jund Al-Aqsa or other radical factions, it said, and they could have been fighters belonging to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an alliance of radical groups based in Idlib.
A Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham media unit said the US-led coalition hit one of its positions near Sarmin, killing six fighters.
Several radical factions, including Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, joined forces last week, calling themselves the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (Liberation of the Levant Committee).
UN refugee chief opposes ‘safe zones’ in Syria
UN refugee chief opposes ‘safe zones’ in Syria
Iraq says it will prosecute Daesh detainees sent from Syria
- Iraq government says transfer was pre-emptive step to protect national security
- Prisoners have been held for years in jails and camps guarded by the Kurdish-led SDF
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said on Thursday it would begin legal proceedings against Daesh detainees transferred from Syria, after the rapid collapse of Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria triggered concerns over prison security.
More than 10,000 members of the ultra-hard-line militant group have been held for years in about a dozen prisons and detention camps guarded by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s northeast.
The US military said on Tuesday its forces had transferred 150 Daesh detainees from Syria to Iraq and that the operation could eventually see up to 7,000 detainees moved out of Syria.
It cited concerns over security at the prisons, which also hold thousands more women and children with ties to the militant group, after military setbacks suffered by the SDF.
A US official told Reuters on Tuesday that about 200 low-level Daesh fighters escaped from Syria’s Shaddadi prison, although Syrian government forces had recaptured many of them.
Iraqi officials said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani mentioned the transfer of Daesh prisoners to Iraq in a phone call with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa on Tuesday, adding that the transfers went ahead following a formal request by the Iraqi government to Syrian authorities.
Iraqi government spokesperson Basim Al-Awadi said the transfer was “a pre-emptive step to protect Iraq’s national security,” adding that Baghdad could not delay action given the rapid pace of security and political developments in Syria.
Daesh emerged in Iraq and Syria, and at the height of its power from 2014-2017 held swathes of the two countries. The group was defeated after a military campaign by a US-led coalition.
An Iraqi military spokesperson confirmed that Iraq had received a first batch of 150 Daesh detainees, including Iraqis and foreigners, and said the number of future transfers would depend on security and field assessments. The spokesperson described the detainees as senior figures within the group.
In a statement, the Supreme Judicial Council said Iraqi courts would take “due legal measures” against the detainees once they are handed over and placed in specialized correctional facilities, citing the Iraqi constitution and criminal laws.
“All suspects, regardless of their nationalities or positions within the terrorist organization, are subject exclusively to the authority of the Iraqi judiciary,” the statement said.
Iraqi officials say under the legal measures, Daesh detainees will be separated, with senior figures including foreign nationals to be held at a high-security detention facility near Baghdad airport that was previously used by US forces.
Two Iraqi legal sources said the Daesh detainees sent from Syria include a mix of nationalities, with Iraqis making up the largest group, alongside Arab fighters from other countries as well as European and other Western nationals.
The sources said the detainees include nationals of Britain, Germany, France, Belgium and Sweden, and other European Union countries, and will be prosecuted under Iraqi jurisdiction.
