Between the devil and the deep blue sea

Syrian refugees are facing war without end, permanent crisis and cuts in humanitarian aid. In growing numbers, they are returning to their war-torn country or risking their lives to reach Europe.

More than four million Syrian refugees across the Middle East find themselves in limbo: A situation where deteriorating conditions inside Syria and neighbouring countries are driving thousands of Syrians to risk everything on perilous journeys to Europe, or even return to their war-torn homeland. As the crisis digs into its sixth year, with no political solution in sight, despair is on the rise and hope is in short supply.
At the same time, donor funds are waning. This year’s UN appeal of 4.5 billion US dollars needed in the work to assist more than four million refugees and host nations, is less than half funded. Aid agencies have had to cut back drastically on food and cash assistance.
In November, European Union leaders agreed to offer Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan 3 billion euros for the next two years as they seek his help to stem the chaotic flow of refugees and migrants. The EU’s lack of response to the crisis is now threatening Europe’s unity and open borders. Aid agencies are not convinced: So far, the humanitarian aid has been too little and too late. This will make a difference for Turkey and the more than two million Syrian refugees there, but it is still not enough.

Many refugees are currently being condemned to a life in legal limbo with an array of restrictions leaving them in fear of arrest, detention and deportation.

JAN EGELAND, Secretary General of Norwegian Refugee Council

Marshall plan

Aid agencies are now calling for a “Marshall Plan” for Syrian refugees. The international community must agree to a bold new plan for Syria’s refugees if it is serious about tackling the largest humanitarian crisis since World War Two, the seven aid agencies Care, Oxfam, Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, IRC and World Vision warn in a new report.

“Many refugees are currently being condemned to a life in legal limbo with an array of restrictions leaving them in fear of arrest, detention and deportation,” says Secretary General of Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland.
“Their living conditions are deteriorating dramatically, forcing refugees to adopt extreme measures to cope, including increasingly to return to the warzone they fled, or to risk their lives crossing to Europe. We need to help the host countries give refugees the opportunity to live dignified lives and make a positive contribution to the communities hosting them.”

Massive international investment

This will entail a massive international investment plan in return for the host countries allowing refugees to work, and thus giving them the chance to support themselves, according to the seven aid agencies.
“But aid programmes are going nowhere at the moment,” says Jan Egeland. “The only thing we have is a half-hearted emergency relief plan that is not nearly enough to meet the needs of the refugees.”
“The refugees want to be close to their homes, but today, we only provide them with desperate choices. No work, no future, no family, no hope. That is not enough. Invest in hope for them, invest in development, invest in work,” he says.
Separately, The World Bank is working on new ideas for raising billions of dollars for large-scale investments. The plan aims to help host countries build infrastructure, right their economies and deal with the steep costs from the refugee population. Eventually, it would expand to rebuild war-stricken Syria, Libya and Yemen. The bank estimates it will cost 170 billion US dollars over 10 years to rebuild Syria, and an additional 100 billion US dollars to rebuild Libya.

We fled from Syria because of the war. We had nothing there anymore. Our home was bombed into rubble.

LEMIA, Syrian refugee

Long-term approach

Syrians now face increasing challenges to find safety and protection in neighbouring countries, which, faced with overwhelming refugee numbers, insufficient international support and security concerns, have taken measures this year to stem the flow of refugees – including restricting access or closer management of borders and introducing onerous and complex requirements for refugees to extend their stay. Neither Turkey, Lebanon nor Jordan has granted the Syrians refugee status, and legally they are seen as guests under a temporary protection regime provided by the Geneva Convention.

Perspective magazine recently met with Lemia and her family on the Greek island of Chios:

“We fled from Syria because of the war. We had nothing there anymore. Our home was bombed into rubble,” Lemia tells us when we meet her at the port.
Three years has passed since she and her family arrived in Turkey, close to the border with Syria.
“When we first arrived, it was good. We were safe there, and received enough support to get by. But then the assistance was cut. The last year and a half we have been suffering,” explains the Kurdish woman.
She is three months pregnant, and is making the dangerous journey toward Europe together with her husband and two children. The parents hope to be able to offer their children safety, necessary medical support and an education.
“I wish for my children to be safe. I want nothing else,” says Lemia.
The seven aid agencies argue that a new, creative long-term approach is needed. With the right help from international donors, Syria’s neighbouring governments should develop policies that allow refugees to better support themselves financially without risking being arrested by authorities. This would also allow refugees to contribute to the economy of the communities hosting them.

GREECE. Syrian Lemia with her husband, their two children and three other refugee children from Syria at the port in Chios. “I wish for my children to be safe. I want nothing else,” says Lemia. Photo: Tiril Skarstein.

From hand to mouth

Unable to afford rent or food, and relying on dwindling aid, refugees are pushed into a spiral of destitution and debt. Some 70 per cent of the refugees in Lebanon lack the documents needed to stay in the country legally, and many refugees in Jordan outside of camps are struggling to access medical and education services because they lack updated documents.

For more than four years now, refugees have been living hand to mouth, relying on humanitarian aid, not knowing where the next meal will come from.

WINNIE BYANYIMA, Oxfam

“For more than four years now, refugees have been living hand to mouth, relying on humanitarian aid, not knowing where the next meal will come from,” says Oxfam’s Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima.
“Experienced carpenters, farmers and teachers, among others, whom we often meet, are struggling to keep a roof over their heads as they scrape money together to pay rent. Their skills should be put to good use, to allow them to provide for their families and support the economies of the countries hosting them. New jobs could also benefit the millions of Jordanians, Lebanese, Turks, and Iraqis who are facing this crisis too.”

From bad to worse

In Jordan, the situation for more than 520,000 Syrians living outside the country’s refugee camps is increasingly dire. A recent UNHCR assessment showed that 86 per cent of those residing in urban and rural areas are now living below the poverty line, having exhausted any savings or other assets they once had. As a result, more than half of all refugee households have high levels of debt and are taking increasingly extreme measures in order to cope, such as reducing their food intake or sending family members – including children – out to beg.

A similarly bleak picture exists in Lebanon where the preliminary findings of a recent vulnerability study found that 70 per cent of Syrian refugee households live far below the national poverty line – up from 50 per cent in 2014. Here too, more refugees are buying food on credit, withdrawing children from school and resorting to begging.

Return to Syria

“As the situation becomes more desperate, more refugees from Syria will have little option but to return to their war-torn country, or attempt to join the tens of thousands of Syrians who have already risked their lives at sea to reach European Union countries,” says Catherine Osborn, NRC Protection Adviser in Jordan.

As the situation becomes more desperate, more refugees from Syria will have little option but to return to their war-torn country.

CATHERINE OSBORN, NRC

Some 4,000 Syrian refugees returned to Syria from Jordan in August, twice as many as the previous month, a trend that coincides with a sharp cut in food assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan. In August, some 229,000 Syrian refugees in host communities already living below the national poverty line were told they would no longer receive food assistance, many others have had their support cut in half.

In October 2015, in a survey of randomly selected refugees by the UNHCR, 25 per cent said they were actively planning to leave Jordan.

LACKING OTHER OPTIONS. Syrian Chebli and his wife plan to bring seven-months-old Sidra and her two siblings on a dangerous journey to Europe. In early 2013, the family fled the war in Syria, and the parents see no future for the children in Lebanon. Photo: Tiril Skarstein.

Going to Europe

Between April 2011 and October 2015, more than 680,000 Syrians had asked for asylum in Europe, according to UNHCR. On 11 November, more than 812,000 people had arrived in Europe this year alone, according to IOM. The largest national group comes from Syria. 300,000 Syrian refugees arrived in Greece alone.
There are also reports of hundreds of Syrians leaving daily through the international airport in Jordan, boarding flights to Istanbul – a first stop on the onward journey to Europe.
This year, NRC has seen an increase in people, particularly Syrian youth, taking contact to get information and counselling related to return and travels to other countries.
“The region is at risk of losing a whole generation of Syrians to conflict and far-flung displacement. Young Syrian refugees, the ones supposed to eventually rebuild Syria, are unable to continue their education or support their families. They see no future in the region,” says Osborn.

The region is at risk of losing a whole generation of Syrians.

CATHERINE OSBORN, NRC

Lack of shelter

Local housing markets and municipal infrastructures are unable to cope. According to NRC, rent is the single highest expenditure for the majority of refugees, representing up to 90 per cent of their monthly household income. A growing proportion of refugees depend on external assistance and struggle to pay rent because of difficulties in establishing livelihoods.

In Jordan alone, there are in 2015 at least 48,000 less housing units on the market to meet the combined needs of Jordanians and refugees living outside of camps.

Lebanon, which has no official camps for Syrian refugees, had been facing a deficit of affordable housing, amounting to a housing crisis, since long before the start of the conflict in Syria.

“The housing shortfall in the host countries has driven up rental prices to levels beyond what most refugees – and many local people – can afford,” says Osborn.

No right to work

Refugees who work without permission in either Lebanon or Jordan risk detention, fines or even deportation back to Syria. In Lebanon, complex, costly and arbitrarily applied regulations introduced in late 2014, mean that refugees registered with UNHCR who wish to extend their stay in the country, have to sign a number of certified documents, including a pledge that they will not work.
“This means that the refugees have a choice between renewing their residency visas and giving up their ability to work, and therefore the possibility to pay for a place to stay, or risking living in Lebanon illegally in the eyes of the authorities,” says Osborn.
In Jordan, refugees, like all foreign nationals, are required to have a government-issued permit to work, which entails strict procedures and prohibitive costs for most. Despite the risks, however, many are left with no choice but to seek some form of illegal income.
Since most refugees from Syria are unable to earn an adequate income to pay rent or cover other basic necessities, they are forced to take on ever increasing levels of debt. Debt levels are often high or rising even when humanitarian assistance is being provided to refugees.

LEBANON. The Syrian refugee Aziz (12) has to collect and sell scrap metal to support his family. “If my family had enough money, they would have left for Europe,” he told Perspective in March this year. Photo: Øystein Mikalsen.

Child labour

Faced with few opportunities to earn a sufficient income themselves, parents are often left with little choice but to send their children out to work, sometimes based on the assumption that they are less likely to be arrested for working illegally.

Some refugee families send their young daughters, many only 12-13 years of age, back to war-torn Syria to marry them and collect the dowry. Other families risk their children’s life by sending them on the dangerous route to Europe.

“My father is sick. He is paralysed and needs support, but he is too sick to travel across the sea,” explains Redor. Perspective meets him after he arrived Chios, having crossed the sea from Turkey. Some friends of the family are keeping an eye on him; the 12-year-old is making his way through Europe, miles away from his parents.

“I want to go to school, and I wish my family can come and be with me,” says Redor.

He is glad to have arrived safely in Greece, and is already thinking about how he best can support his family from Europe. They all fled the war in Syria to Turkey some years ago, but it has been difficult for the family to get by in the new country.

With adults unable to earn a living, more and more children end up working.

MISTY BUSWELL, Save the Children

“I was working there, trying to support my family, but it was not easy to find work and there was no school for me,” says Redor.

“With adults unable to earn a living, more and more children end up working. Hundreds of thousands of children are missing years of education as the school systems in neighbouring countries are bursting at the seams and need much greater support,” says Misty Buswell, Regional Advocacy Director at Save the Children.

According to Unicef, less than half of the 1.4 million Syrian refugee children in the neighbouring countries are attending school.

Not hopeless

“Very soon, many refugees who live in sub-standard shelters will face another winter in exile,” Osborn reminds us, and conclude: “The majority of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon lack the financial resources to contemplate the costly and dangerous journey to Europe, and with no prospect of being able to return safely to Syria, the situation is leading to an increasing sense of desperation and entrapment.”

Even with the right investment and policies, the scale of the crisis means that the most vulnerable refugees will need asylum outside of the region. The aid agencies now calling for a “Marshall Plan” for Syrian refugees, argue that the rich countries should provide a safe resettlement option for at least 10 per cent of the refugees in greatest need. The rich countries, however, have so far only pledged to accept less than three per cent.

It is not hopeless. A donor conference for the Syrians will be jointly hosted by the UK, Germany, Kuwait and Norway in London in February. Refugee hosting governments are giving positive signs of wanting to do more to allow refugees to help themselves. Now, world leaders from wealthier states in Europe and elsewhere must respond and present a credible plan for investing in the future of the Syrian youth. Too many promises have been made to help refugees and host states without sufficient money and action.

1) Is migration good for the European economy and economies in origin countries?

The proven reality is that migration brings benefits, fuelling growth, innovation and entrepreneurship in both the countries people come from, and in those they move to, if managed smartly. Migrants and refugees contribute to the economy both as employees and as entrepreneurs, creating new firms and businesses. Migrant and refugee integration into labour markets and societies can be expensive at first, but is an investment with high return. Moreover, migrants contribute to their home countries through money sent back home: remittances now make up three times as much as official development assistance and help foster growth, develop communities and increase access to schooling and health care. Migrants act as bridges between two places, transferring knowledge and skills, all of which can contribute to their home communities.

2) Do stricter border controls and measures like fences reduce irregular migration?

Building fences does not stop the refugee influx; it merely shifts it to other countries and increases human misery. Migrants and asylum seekers are more likely to resort to entering a country irregularly when there are no legal alternatives. This often means relying on smugglers and using routes that expose them to numerous dangers, abuses and even death. This is why more credible, legal and safe ways to reach Europe need to be created such as resettlement, more flexible procedures for family reunification and humanitarian and other visas.

3) Does Europe need more migrants and refugees?

Europe’s population is ageing. The EU’s working-age population will decline by 3.5 million people by 2020 according to Eurostat estimates. Europe needs workers, and migrants can mitigate the effects of an ageing and shrinking population, in a wide variety of fields of employment. Increasing migration equal to 3 per cent of the workforce in developed countries between 2005 and 2025 would generate global gains of approximately 342 billion euros according to the World Bank. Evidence from the OECD suggests that in most countries migrants pay more in taxes and social contributions than they receive.

4) Are most of those arriving economic migrants?

Around 80 per cent of the more than 800 000 arrivals to the EU this year by sea are mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and Palestinians (who had been living in Syria) fleeing war and persecution. What Europe faces today is mainly a refugee crisis. There are many other nationalities arriving as well, so the overall picture is mixed and complex and every case must be looked at individually. Many migrants may not qualify for refugee status but are still vulnerable or forcibly displaced or unable to return home.

5) Do migrants and refugees take jobs away from local people

Migrants accounted for 47 per cent of the increase in the workforce in the United States and 70 per cent in Europe over the past ten years according to the OECD. Migrants often take jobs that others are less willing to do or take, and can help fill gaps in the job market. They can complement the local labour force rather than competing with it by providing skills at all levels that are needed in most developed countries. Last but not least, as mentioned in #1, migrant entrepreneurs help to CREATE jobs! Unemployment is a larger problem that exists apart from arrivals of migrants and refugees, yet is it easier for some politicians to blame migrants/refugees in order to shift attention away from structural problems and economic policies. But whether employed or unemployed, states have obligations - under international human rights and refugee law - to protect the rights of migrants (whether regular or irregular) and refugees.

6) Are most of them men?

Although an increasing number of families arriving, out of 102,753 registered arrivals through Italy and Greece, the International Organization of Migration reports that 68,085 were men, with 13,888 women and 20,780 children. In the case of both refugees and migrants, those most likely to survive the dangerous journey tend to travel first, to be joined by family members once they have reached safety.

7) Do refugees and migrants carry foreign diseases into Europe?

There can be genuine health concerns linked to human migration and to travel in general, including from Europe to other countries. But the idea that migrants are particularly diseased, or that they are bringing foreign diseases into Europe, has more to do with fear than it does with fact. Far more migrants enter Europe in a regular way and have been doing so for decades, dwarfing the current irregular inflows, yet there have been no pandemics in Europe because of this.

8) Are there terrorists among them?

IOM and UNHCR report that to date [4 October 2015 Ed.], there has not been a single proven case of terrorist infiltrating migrant flows to Europe. It is unlikely that terrorists will mix with migrants/refugees and attempt to reach Europe via deadly sea routes. They are more likely to attempt to enter in safer, more regular ways. Far from being a security threat, migrants and refugees are seeking peace and safety, to provide for their families and build their futures.

9) Do some refugees and migrants turn up in Europe and falsely claim to be Syrian?

Some do - while a market for false identity papers exists, its scale is not known. Frontex is unable to provide figures on how many migrants and refugees are arriving in Europe with false Syrian passports, but said several countries had indicated they had seen such cases.

10) Do all migrants and refugees want to come to Europe? Is Europe facing the world’s heaviest refugee burden?

Turkey, Pakistan, and Lebanon are now home to 30 per cent of refugees worldwide, followed by Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan and Kenya. According to UNHCR 86 per cent or almost nine in 10 refugees reside in developing countries, including some of the poorest countries in the world. Not everyone wants or is able to come to Europe. In fact, South-South migration, i.e. migration between developing countries, is just as great as migration between the global South and the global North.

(PREPARED BY UNRIC, IOM, UNHCR, UNDP AND OHCHR)