Analysis of Syrian and Forced Migration: Causes and Impacts

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of forced migration from Syria, focusing on the period since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. It examines the various forms of displacement, including conflict-induced displacement, the refugee crisis, and internal displacement, highlighting the factors driving migration such as conflict, violence, and political uncertainty. The report details the human rights violations committed by the Syrian government, allied forces, and armed groups, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, restrictions on humanitarian aid, arbitrary detentions, and the failure to investigate civilian casualties. It also explores the experiences of Syrian refugees in surrounding countries and beyond, with a particular focus on the UK's asylum system and resettlement programs. The report concludes by discussing the complex political and socio-cultural problems associated with migration and its impacts on both Syria and the host countries, emphasizing the need for international cooperation and human rights protection.

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FORMS OF FORCED MIGRATION FROM SYRIA
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Introduction
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) defines forced migration as any kind
of migratory movement that normally involves coercion, compulsion, or force. Forced migration
affects refugees, displaced persons, and victims of trafficking (Migration Data Portal, 2019).
According to the data provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR), there were 70.8 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide due to human rights
violation, violence, conflict, or persecution at the end of 2018. 25 persons were forced to flee
every minute globally in 2018 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2019). More
than two thirds of the global refugees came from five countries that include Syria, Afghanistan,
South Sudan, Myanmar, and Somali, with Syria recording to highest number of refugees (6.7
million) (United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 2019).
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (2019), Syrians
constituted the world’s largest number of displaced population with a total of 13 million persons
living in displacement by the end of 2018. This included a total of 6.7 refugees; 6.2 million
internally displaced persons (IDPs); and 140,000 asylum-seekers. Since the start of the Syrian
civil war in 2011, Syria has seen over 5 million Syrian people forced to flee their country and
another well over 7 million people internally displaced (Ince Yebilmez, 2017, p.184). The form
of forced migration that Syria has experienced is conflict-induced displacement that has brought
about the forced migration to the surrounding countries and beyond. According to the United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (2019), conflict, violence, and political uncertainty are
the three leading factors that have driven displacement in the country.

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According to estimates by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Coordination
(OCHA), military operations have displaced 600,000 people in Idlib and Hama governorates and
at least 180,000 people in northeastern Syria. The Brazilian chairman of the group, Pinero, told
the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that serious human rights abuses were so
common that his group could not investigate them one by one. He also said that the number of
Islamic militants in Syria is increasing, and their presence has pushed the opposition to a more
extreme position. Faisal Hamouy, Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations,
criticized the report. He said that the international community was fueling the crisis in Syria.
Protests against Syrian President Assad, which began in March 2011, and subsequent
crackdowns by the Syrian government have evolved into daily battles between government
forces and anti-government forces. The UN investigation team said the conflict was equivalent to
a civil war and there was "good reason" to believe that government forces, pro-Assad militia and
anti-government forces all had war crimes and human rights abuses.
According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, the Turkish-Syrian border
remains completely closed, and Turkish border guards have routinely forced asylum seekers,
including the use of live ammunition, to kill dozens of people since January 2019.
About 18,000 people left al-Rukban camp on the Syrian-Jordan border to go to a
government-controlled area. Government restrictions on humanitarian assistance, and Jordan's
denial of Rukban refugees to seek asylum or provide cross-border assistance mean that camp
residents are at risk of severe hunger and disease and may be attacked. All those returning to the
government-controlled area went to refugee shelters. Although various migrant camps and
border crossings have service points for the United Nations and the Syrian Chapter of the Arab

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Red Crescent Society, reports indicate that evacuees were detained and ill-treated after reaching
government-controlled areas.
Despite serious security risks and opaque conditions in the Syrian government-controlled
areas, Syrian refugees staying in surrounding countries are still under pressure from host
countries to return to Syria. According to UNHCR records, as of June 2019, more than 40,000
refugees have returned.
In Turkey, more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees have been temporarily protected, and
Istanbul alone has accommodated 500,000. But in 2019, after the Turkish authorities forced them
to sign a "voluntary return" form, many of them were detained and forcibly repatriated. Many
eventually arrived in the Sharm Liberation Organization-controlled area of Idlib Province, either
arrested by the organization or attacked by Syrian-Russian coalition forces.
Turkey also proposes to establish a buffer zone in northeastern Syria and plans to relocate
at least 1 million Syrians in Turkey. However, the establishment of a buffer zone may not ensure
the protection of civilians and may lead to many human rights issues.
Lebanon has hosted about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, but since April they have been
strongly encouraged to return and take active measures to curb the influx of refugees. The
General Directorate of Security of the Lebanese Border Control Agency (General Security) said
that after making a decision on May 13, 2019 to expel all Syrians who entered the country
illegally after April 24, the agency has been operating from May 21 to August 28. 2,731 Syrians
were deported and handed directly to Syrian authorities . At least three deportees were arrested
by Syrian authorities on their return.

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U.S. support forces and U.S.-led coalition violate human rights
The Battle of Baghuz in February 2019 caused ISIS to lose its final territory. This battle
was characterized by intensive air strikes by the United States-led coalition and ground artillery
attacks by the Syrian Democratic Forces. As the final battle unfolded, Human Rights Watch
confirmed that more than 630 locations in the town were severely damaged, buildings throughout
the town were generally damaged, and a large number of civilians remained in those locations.
The British surveillance group Airwars estimates that between January and June 2019,
US-led coalition air strikes killed at least 416 civilians.
Coalition forces did not thoroughly investigate the attacks that caused civilian casualties.
Although they paid a condolences to a family in January 2019, they did not formulate a
comprehensive plan to compensate or assist civilians injured by coalition operations. The U.S.
Department of Defense attributed the reasons for underpayment to "actual restrictions" and
"limited U.S. presence, reducing the situational awareness required for moral compensation."
Witnesses who fled from the final territory of ISIS-paying huge sums to smuggling
groups on the way-described that they face extremely distressing humanitarian conditions and
brutal attacks in their places of origin. ISIS even severely punishes residents who are only
thinking about fleeing, and lays mines on the escape route to deter fugitives.
Although the Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria has reduced the size of the Kurdish
leadership, as of this writing, the Kurdish autonomous government in northeast Syria still
controls most of the 110,000 ISIS suspects and their families, including 62,000 Syrian and Iraqi
people, and more than 11,000 non-Iraqi foreign women and children associated with ISIS

Syrian and Forced Migration 6
suspects. These women and children are being held in al-Hol camps in the desert, living in
extremely harsh and even lethal conditions. Inadequate resources and limited humanitarian
assistance have led to continued deterioration in camp conditions.
According to the Amnesty International (2019), parties involved in the Syrian armed
conflict have continued to commit serious international law violations with impunity. These
violations include war crimes and serious human rights abuses. The Syrian government and its
allied forces have been involved in direct and indiscriminate attacks on Syrian civilians and
civilian objects using artillery and aerial bombing. This has led to the injuries and deaths of
hundreds of people living in the northern Syrian areas of Hama and Idlib.
Government forces have also been involved in the restriction of access to the medical and
humanitarian aid to civilians living in the country’s government controlled areas. Government
security forces have arbitrarily arrested Syrian civilians and former fighters, and continue to
detain tens of thousands of people today. Some of those that have been arrested and detained
include humanitarian workers, peaceful activists, journalists, and lawyers, who have been
subjected to enforced torture and disappearance. Others have been subjected to ill-treatment
leading to deaths in such detentions (Amnesty International, 2019).
Armed groups supported by Turkey, on the other hand, are abusing Syrian civilians living
in Afrin. These abuses include looting and confiscation of property as well as arbitrary
detentions. These armed groups working with Turkey have also been blamed indiscriminate
attacks during the experienced hostilities in the north-eastern part of Syria. The Autonomous
Administration has also been involved in the carrying out of various arbitrary detentions in the
same north-eastern Syrian region. More importantly, the coalition that was led by the United

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States significantly failed to investigate the large number of civilian deaths that resulted from the
2017 US bombing campaign on the Raqqa region against the Islamic State (IS) armed group
(Amnesty International, 2019). Amnesty International (2019) reports that military offensives in
north-east and north-west Syria internally displaced 174,600 and 684,000 people respectively.
Today, tens of thousands of Syrian people continue to live under inadequate standards of living
in mosques, schools, and makeshift camps.
Forced migration
Due to the unbearable conditions covered above, most of the Syrians have been forced to
migrate. Their stay in Europe and the Middle East is fundamentally different. In Europe, they
have been and remain the focus of media attention, and European countries that have become the
center of attraction for migrants have sufficient economic potential to meet their needs. At the
same time, the economies of the Middle East are much weaker, governments are less stable, and
social systems have been under pressure from Palestinian and Iraqi refugees for many years
(Fisk, 2016).
Data from the UK Home Office indicates that between the years 2011 and2018, a total of
10,255 Syrian people applied for asylum in the United Kingdom (Mohdin & McIntyre, 2019).
Syrians accounted for 5 percent of all asylum applications in the UK in this period. Over the last
five years, over 17,000 fleeing from Syrian conflicts have settled in the United Kingdom. An
additional 3,000 refugees are also expected to be accepted by the end of 2020
In 2018, there were a total of 37,453 asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. This number
has remained fairly constant for the last five years and has been substantially lower compared to
the year 2002, when the United Kingdom received 103,000 asylum applications. By the end of

Syrian and Forced Migration 8
the year 2018, a total of 44,258 people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom were receiving
government. According to the UK Home Department statistics, Syrian refugees are considered as
a special case in the asylum seeking statistics. Although many Syrians apply for asylum through
the in-country process in place in the United Kingdom, most of the Syrian refugees in the United
Kingdom have directly been resettled from abroad. These refugees have originated from the
countries that surround Syria, where those refugees had fled upon the outbreak of the conflict.
Since 2014, the United Kingdom has been resettling Syrian refugees under a program called the
Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) targeting 20,000 by 2020 (Sturge, 2019).
In conclusion, over 13 million have faced forced migration from Syria since the outbreak
of conflicts in 2011. These victims of force migration have faced various human rights violations
including serious violations of humanitarian and international law both from the Syrian
government and the different armed groups fighting with the government in Syria. Between 2011
and 2018, over 10,000 Syrian people have applied for Asylum in the United Kingdom with close
to 15,000 refugees being admitted under VPRS.
The problems of Syrian refugees in theoretical and practical terms differs from traditional
options. Migration has both positive and negative sides: on the one hand, a potential increase in
the rate of economic development due to the influx of labor, and on the other, a complex of
political and socio-cultural problems. But in the Middle East as a whole, and in Syria in
particular, the problem of population aging (from the point of view of the economic downturn) is
not so acute, and cultural problems are not so contrasted (Meyer and Donna 2017),
Consideration of Syrian refugees through the prism of diasporas is also not possible. First
of all, unlike Turkey, Syria does not see its migrants as an opportunity to lobby for national

Syrian and Forced Migration 9
interests. They have no diasporal influence in comparison, for example, with Germany and the
Turkish diasporas or with Jordan and the Palestinian diasporas (Mabon, 2017).
Secondly, the Syrian diasporas do not have significant influence in the economies of the
countries of residence (Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey), since they do not have unique labor skills.
Relations between the diasporas and their homeland are not actively used. In addition, the Syrian
government, expecting the end of hostilities soon, wants first of all the return of refugees
(Nebehay, 2018).
Thirdly, if Turkey is an example of the successful use of its migrants and diasporas as an
element of soft power, then Syria does not seek to implement such a format.
Finally, fourthly, in the Arab countries, due to the civilizational and cultural community,
the issue of integration of Syrian refugees is not as acute as in Europe. The unity of the Syrians,
Lebanese and Jordanians in cultural, religious and moral terms is an example of the
manifestation of communicative integration. Moreover, the presence of only such a form of
integration, without economic and political, raises a number of specific problems (Jansen, 2018).
One of the main activities of international organizations is assistance to internally
displaced persons (IDPs). In the absence of a universal legally binding international definition,
the general principles and rules enshrined in the UN Guidelines on Internal Displacement from
1998 are used. Since IDPs do not cross internationally recognized state borders, their legal status
is regulated by national law (Fisk, 2016). Due to the particular vulnerability of IDPs, they fall
under the international protection system in accordance with international humanitarian law. A
particular vulnerability is the presence of a large number of short-term and long-term needs -
such as access to water, food, housing, medical and psychological assistance. To mitigate the

Syrian and Forced Migration 10
effects of displacement of large numbers of people and support host communities, various
organizations, for example, National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies or, in some cases,
UNHCR remind local authorities of their obligations to meet the basic needs of IDPs, provide the
latter with all the necessary things on the ground their placement, help in the restoration of
family ties (Khatib, 2017).
A key issue, in addition to legal issues and outbreaks of tension in host societies, is the
issue of returning IDPs to their places of permanent residence. The determining factor is the
expression of the will of IDPs, which may consist in returning to the place of permanent
residence, integration in the place of stay or resettlement in other areas of the country.
Responsibility for this lies with the authorities of the respective state. Since it does not always
have the necessary resources, the assistance of international and regional organizations, for
example, in matters of mine clearance and rehabilitation of infrastructure, is of great importance
(Hallinan, 2018).
The problem of Syrian refugees is no less acute for international organizations. The
capabilities of countries neighboring Syria to receive and provide refugees have already reached
their limits, so the activities of international and regional organizations are aimed at providing
host countries with additional resources and resolving problems of living. An example is UN
interagency operations for the delivery of food and essentials to Syrian families living in Jordan.
The main organization specializing in refugee issues is UNHCR. Together with more than 300
NGOs, it mediates between refugees and the authorities of the host state, helps to obtain refugee
status, provides food, basic necessities, medical assistance, monitors the fulfillment by states of
their international obligations, implements programs for integration into host countries or
resettlement in third countries (Heydemann, 2018)..

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