Weighed down by economic woes, Syrian refugees head home from Jordan

According to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, 34,000 registered Syrian refugees have returned from Jordan since October 2018, when a key border crossing was reopened after years of closure. It’s a fraction of the 650,000 registered Syrian refugees remaining in Jordan, but a dramatic jump from previous years, when annual returns hovered at around 7,000.

Syrian refugees from the other main host countries – Turkey and Lebanon – are making the trip too. UNHCR has monitored more than 209,000 voluntary refugee returns to Syria since 2016, but the actual figure is likely to be significantly higher.

Many refugees in Jordan say they are simply fed up with years spent in a dead-end job market with a bleak economic future. Syrian refugees need a permit to work in Jordan but they are limited to working in a few industries in designated economic zones. Many others end up in low-paying jobs, and have long faced harsh economic conditions in Jordan.  Thousands of urban refugees earn a meagre living either on farms or construction sites, or find informal work as day laborers.

“I’m not returning because I think the situation in Syria is good,” said Farah, a mother of three who spoke to TNH in September – about a month before she packed up her things to leave. “But you don’t enter into a difficult situation unless the one you’re currently in is even worse.” 

Asked whether it is safe for refugees to go back to Syria, Francesco Bert, a UNHCR spokesperson in Jordan, said the agency “considers refugees’ decisions as the main guideposts”, but gives refugees considering or planning to return “information that might inform their decision-making”, to help ensure it is truly voluntary.

[The New Humanitarian]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.