Beirut, Lebanon – Moussa al-Omari has been postponing his military service in Syria for seven years. But knowing that his legitimate reasons were running out, he left the country in August last year and legally entered Lebanon through the airport.
As March this year was the last month of his duty exemption, al-Omari – whose name has been changed for security reasons – hoped he would be granted legal residence in Lebanon, but said his request had been rejected by Lebanese authorities.
“They told me, ‘It doesn’t matter, you can stay illegally. No one will bother you.’ And just three or four weeks ago they started deporting anyone who has no legal residence,” al-Omari told Al Jazeera.
“Since then I’ve just been hiding at home.”
Al-Omari, 25, along with more than a million Syrians seeking refuge in Lebanon — the majority of whom have been in the country since the outbreak of civil war in Syria 11 years ago — are now terrified of the current crackdown. against their presence.
According to UNHCR spokesperson Paula Barrachina, there have been at least 73 confirmed raids on Syrian communities across the country in April.
Barrachina also confirmed to Al Jazeera — without giving a number — that Syrians had been detained and deported, including those registered with UNHCR.
“UNHCR takes reports of deportations of Syrian refugees very seriously and is concerned about current developments,” Barrachina told Al Jazeera.
The Lebanese interior ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
Prevent deportation
A leading humanitarian source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told Al Jazeera that more than 1,100 Syrians have been arrested and 600 deported since early 2023.
In some of these deportations, minors have been separated from their families.
Waad, 31, and her husband Raad – who asked for their surname to be kept secret – fled from Deraa in southern Syria to Lebanon in 2006.
Their stay became legal in 2012 with Raad getting sponsorship through his employer, but this only lasted for a year as he lost his job.
Now, amid the crackdown and deportations, Raad struggles to secure sponsorship from his new employer at a factory in Beirut.
“They need a photo of the business owner’s ID [to process the residency] but he refuses to provide it. My husband tries and tries, but the owner won’t help,” Waad told Al Jazeera as her three young children noisily released their energy around her.
“Now my husband is afraid to go to work at night because someone asks him for his papers,” she said with concern.
Her children are also afraid to go to school, and Waad explained that there are checkpoints just down the street in front of the only mosque in the area, where security forces check paperwork.
“At the end of Friday prayers, they make a checkpoint so no one can escape,” she explained.
Like al-Omari, Raad has avoided military service in Syria, and Waad says he is wanted. The entire family has also spoken out against the Syrian regime.
“If we were deported, he would be taken by the Syrian forces and I would never be able to see him again,” said Waad, referring to her husband.
Raad suffers from a condition that causes intense stabbing or electric shock-like pain due to a nervous disorder – for which he can no longer find medicines in Lebanon.
“So if the Syrian regime catches him, he won’t survive a minute if they torture him,” Waad said.
“Whoever says there is peace in Syria knows nothing.”
Unprecedented raids
Deportations of Syrians, including registered refugees, have been documented in previous years; between May 2019 and December 2020, the Lebanese Directorate of General Security confirmed that authorities had deported 6,002 Syrians.
As human rights organizations have investigated, Syrian refugees, including children, are subjected to unlawful or arbitrary detention, torture, rape and sexual violence or enforced disappearance upon their return.
However, Human Rights Watch Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss said the number of reported raids and the way the current summary deportations are taking place is unprecedented.
“We have spoken to several individuals, all registered with UNHCR, who have been deported [recently] without being given a chance to challenge their deportation or contact a lawyer, their families or UNHCR,” said Kaiss.
“We are also seeing an increase in anti-refugee sentiment being propagated by government officials and media outlets who on multiple occasions have resorted to misinformation and disinformation tactics to incite against refugees.”
If al-Omari is deported to Syria, he will likely be taken to prison immediately from the border.
“I would receive a sentence of at least a year and then I would be sent to the service, which is indefinite; I have no idea when I would be released,” he explained.
For al-Omari, joining the army is not an option – he says his father and brother lost their minds after serving 35 and 10 years respectively.
“My father was an aircraft mechanic…when he said something, [the officers] did not like; they imprisoned him and tortured him until he went mad,” he said.
“They released him by throwing him on the street, completely insane and they didn’t even pay him the Armed Forces old age pension.”
Al-Omari explains that his brother went through a similar situation, which has left him unable to find work or interact with people since his release in 2020 with severe psychological damage.
As of May, the Interior Ministry has made proof of registration in Lebanon mandatory for Syrians renting property, adding to existing restrictions on movement, work and social gatherings.
Kaiss told Al Jazeera that the government “is resorting to incitement against refugees and illegal measures such as summary deportations”.
“These restrictions are discriminatory [and] appear to have been designed as part of a strategy to create a coercive environment for refugees in Lebanon, forcing them to consider returning to Syria despite the risks they face,” said Kaiss.
Al-Omari mostly works as a copywriter, copywriter and translator, but has no option to work in Lebanon under the labor restrictions – which usually limit work for Syrians to labour-intensive fields such as agriculture.
But even if he works online, he cannot receive his salary because he cannot open a bank account or even provide money transfer services.
It is precisely because of these restrictions, including the fear of not being able to pay the rent, that al-Omari has decided to smuggle himself back into Syria within weeks.
“I’ll just hide there and think of something. I am fully convinced that it will be much safer for me than hiding in Lebanon,” he said.
“There I can hide in one of my friend’s apartments, and I know I’ll be safe because [the regime] no more raiding houses looking for people like they do here in Lebanon.”
Al-Omari tries to sell his guitar to pay the smuggler’s expenses.
He knows he is taking a risk, but al-Omari says his current situation is unsustainable and his time in Lebanon has made him an insecure, introverted person.
“I became very distant because everywhere I go I feel so alienated and discriminated against by everyone and my freedom of movement is limited to the limit,” he said.
He wishes he could tell everyone in Lebanon that he is not their enemy and that he didn’t even want to leave his country in the first place.
“If you used all the hard work you put into hating us, me and my people to sort out your own bullshit, you’d do a lot better than you do now.”