The men, women and children fleeing Syria have commonly been subjected to and/or witnessed torture, kidnappings and massacres. They have been victimised by rape and other forms of sexual violence. Their homes and neighbourhoods have been destroyed. They have been…
Of the 9.5 million people forced to flee because of conflict in Syria to date, more than two-thirds – a staggering 6.45 million people – are displaced inside the country.[1] Indeed, Syria now is the country with the most IDPs…
A longstanding concern in Syria is the scarcity of international NGOs physically present inside the country. In part because of this, a significant amount of the humanitarian response to the Syrian conflict has been spearheaded by local organisations and networks…
International organisations, NGOs and even researchers tend to characterise all Syrians who are now found in the neighbouring countries as ‘refugees’. While this may reflect the administrative category of those registered with UNHCR, it is not a good reflection of…
Two problems have beset the response to the situation of Lebanese host communities with regard to the Syrian refugee presence. The first is the tension over short-term versus long-term strategies towards the displacement, with the former being emergency responses largely…
There is a significant community of highly educated, middle-class and generally left-leaning Syrian refugees living in Lebanon who are strongly committed to assisting needier refugees and to playing a role in rebuilding Syria, yet whose energies could be harnessed to…
Three years into the conflict, displaced Syrians in Lebanon are affected by both governmental and ordinary people’s ambivalence towards their presence. From the point of view of the international humanitarian community, the absence of official camps in Lebanon makes it…
According to Lebanese law, without the required entry or stay documentation to be in Lebanon, refugees from Syria are considered to be there ‘illegally’, giving them only limited legal status in the country. Either they crossed into Lebanon through unofficial…
What may appear to be generalised or indiscriminate violence in Syria is in reality often specifically targeting particular populations on the basis of an imputed political opinion, that is, their perceived support for one of the sides in the conflict.…
The scale of displacement from the Syrian crisis is compounded by its geographic spread and its prolonged nature. Syrians have been forced from their homes to neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, while others have fled to Egypt, Libya and…