DAMASCUS: Almost 30 percent of the millions of Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries want to return home in the next year, following the fall of President Bashar Assad, up from almost none last year, the head of the UN’s refugee agency said.
The shift is based on an assessment done by the UN in January, weeks after Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels, bringing an abrupt end to a 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.
“We have seen the needle move, finally, after years of decline,” Filippo Grandi told a small group of reporters in Damascus, after holding meetings with the Syria’s new ruling administration.
The number of Syrians wishing to return “had reached almost zero. It’s now nearly 30 percent in the space of a few weeks. There is a message there, which I think is very important, must be listened to and must be acted upon,” he said.
Around 200,000 Syrian refugees have already returned since Assad fell, he said, in addition to around 300,000 who fled back to Syria from Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war in September and October, most of whom are thought to have stayed.
Returning the roughly 6 million Syrians who fled abroad and the millions who became internally displaced has been a main aim of Syria’s new administration.
But the civil war has left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. Syria remains under a harsh Western sanctions regime that effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.
To aid Syrians returning, many of whom often sell all their belongings to pay for the trip, UN agencies are providing some cash aid for transportation and will help with food and to reconstruct at least parts of broken homes, Grandi said.
More aid is needed from donors, Grandi said, and sanctions should be reconsidered. He did not comment directly on an announcement on Friday by the new US administration of a broad suspension of foreign aid programs.
“If sanctions are lifted, this will improve the conditions in the places where people return,” he said.
The US earlier this month provided a six-month sanctions exemption for some sectors, including energy, but Syria’s new leaders say much more relief is needed.
Grandi said refugees were responding to a political process that the new administration’s leader Ahmed Sharaa has committed to, aimed at producing a governing authority by March 1 that better represents Syria’s diversity.
“Refugees are listening to what he’s saying, to what his people are saying, and that’s why I think many people decided to go back,” Grandi said. “But many more will come if these things continue to be positive.”
Nearly 30% of Syrians want to go home, up from almost zero, UN refugee chief says
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Nearly 30% of Syrians want to go home, up from almost zero, UN refugee chief says
- Filippo Grandi says "needle has moved" on refugees wanting to return now Bashar Assad has been deposed
Iran launches new attacks at Gulf Arab countries as it keeps up pressure on the region
- In addition to firing missiles and drones at Israel and American bases in the region, Iran has also been targeting energy infrastructure
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Iran launched new attacks Tuesday at Gulf Arab countries as it keeps up pressure on the region, while five pro-Iranian militants were killed in an airstrike northern Iraq.
Incoming missile sirens sounded early in the morning in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two drones over its oil-rich eastern region and Kuwait’s National Guard said it had show down six drones.
In addition to firing missiles and drones at Israel and American bases in the region, Iran has also been targeting energy infrastructure which, combined with its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, has sent oil prices soaring.
Brent crude, the international standard, spiked to nearly $120 on Monday before falling back but was still at around $90 a barrel on Tuesday, nearly 24 percent higher than when the war started on Feb. 28.
US President Donald Trump, who has previously said that the war could last for a month or longer, on Tuesday sought to downplay growing fears that it could be a long-term regional conflict, saying it was “going to be a short-term excursion.”
Trump sends contradictory messages as Tehran says it’s prepared for a long war
The war has choked off major supplies of oil and gas to world markets and sent fuel prices rising across the US The fighting has also led foreigners to flee from business hubs and prompted millions to seek shelter as bombs hit military bases, government buildings, oil and water installations, hotels and at least one school.
Iran has effectively stopped tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane between the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — the gateway to the Indian Ocean — through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is carried. Attacks on merchant ships near the strait have killed at least seven sailors, according to the International Maritime Organization.
In a post on social media on Tuesday, Trump seemed not to acknowledge that, saying that “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
In an apparent response to Trump’s remarks published in Iranian state media, a spokesperson for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Ali Mohammad Naini, said “Iran will determine when the war ends.”
Kamal Kharazi, foreign policy adviser to the office of the supreme leader, told CNN on Monday that Iran is prepared for a long war. He said he sees no “room for diplomacy anymore” unless economic pressure prompts other countries to intervene and stop the “aggression of Americans and Israelis against Iran.”
Airstrike on Iran-linked militia in Iraq kills five
As the conflict has spread against the region, Israel has launched multiple attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian-linked militia has responded by firing missiles into Israel.
Pro-Iran militias in Iraq have also launched attacks at US bases in the country since the beginning of the conflict.
Early Tuesday, one of those militias, the 40th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the city of Kirkuk, was hit with an airstrike that killed at least five militants and wounded four others, according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief reporters.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the strikes.
Since the war began, at least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials.
A total of seven US service members have been killed.
Financial markets, which swung wildly in recent days, opened the day Tuesday in Asia with early gains, building on late optimism in the US
