Thread by @Syria_Irl

FACT-FINDING DELEGATION TO THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMPS IN LEBANON

A fact-finding delegation organised by @sa_council & @ACHRightsthe is visiting refugee camps in Lebanon Eilee of @Syria_Irl is participating & will be reporting on conditions on the ground upon her return to Ireland

Primary focus of delegation to investigate deeply disturbing reports of coerced return of refugees to regime-controlled Syria & to raise these concerns withĺ Lebanese authorities & international missions on the ground. Delegation will also visit Syrian NGO working with refugees

Forced return of refugees to areas in which they will be exposed to dangeris in contravention of international law principle of non-refoulement. While Lebanon is not a signatory to 1951 Refugee Convention it is nonetheless obliged to comply with requirements of international law

Given well-documented fate of many of forcibly returned & equally well-documented barbarism of regime towards the political opposition in general, there can be no legal or moral excuse for Lebanese authorities to justify a policy of pushback against principle of non-refoulement

There is a particular responsibility on the UNHCR to highlight these acts of refoulement and to do all in its power to resist them, which to date it has failed to adequately do.

Among horrific statistics of the war waged by this regime on the Syrian people one of obvious relevance to coerced returnees stands out: numbers of those ‘disappeared’ into state’s prison system is conservatively estimated at over 100,000, since start of ‘Syrian Arab Spring’ 2011

Human Rights Watch, Syrian Network for Human Rights, & other NGO’s familiar with conditions inside Syria have documented many instances over the past year of forcibly returned refugees being ‘disappeared’ into the regime’s grim network of institutions of state repression & murder