Paris, France – 24 February 2026
Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, political narratives have coalesced around the presumption that Syrian refugees should and will return to Syria, the implicit assumption being that Syria is now considered safe for returns. However, despite significant political changes in Syria the country remains unstable and lacks the basic conditions of safety and durability which has led many returns to be, to different degrees, temporary in nature.
While far fewer than projected, returnees to Syria (amounting to approximately 500 thousand Syrian refugees as of January 2026 according to UNHCR) have returned from Lebanon[1]. They sought to return for multifaceted reasons, often under various pressures in their host countries and made return decisions based on limited information and fluid dynamics in Syria. Upon return, Syrians have been forced to come to terms with and experience the reality of conditions in the country they fled: a Syria that remains highly fragmented in terms of governance and security, deep economic crisis with challenges securing basic needs (housing, water, electricity, jobs etc.) and a host of other social and political pressures. For many, precarious and uncertain conditions in Syria led to the decision to return to host countries in state of compounded vulnerability and precarity.
From push factors and pressures in Lebanon to unsustainable return decisions:
For those that made the difficult and complex decision to return to Syria from Lebanon, they did so based on a fluid and dynamic context, and under significant push factors that undercut their ability to make a truly voluntary and informed decisions to return. Syrian refugees who decided to return to Syria, referenced several pressures and push factors that shaped their decision. Increasingly restrictive legal policies targeting refugees in Lebanon, including on their ability to secure basic goods and services, access livelihood opportunities, their minimum safety as they are increasingly targeted in security campaigns, arrests and detentions, curfews and movement restrictions, forced eviction campaigns (or the threat thereof) and broadly an increasingly difficult anti-refugee climate in Lebanon have all fed into growing feelings of fear and precarity[2]. In 2025, ACHR documented the arrest/detainment of 941 Syrian refugees and the forced eviction of 3,908 Syrian refugees in Lebanon.[3] The economic situation in Lebanon was also a primary push factor for refugees who referenced high costs of living related to rent, water and electricity, medical care, increasing inflation of everyday items, increasing personal debts, the inability to enrol children in schools, the lack of job opportunities and discrimination accessing jobs in specific sectors. As one refugee said: “In Lebanon, the circumstances were stronger than us and forced us to make the decision to return, such as the high cost of rent and the lack of aid….We want our children to continue their education…this was the main reason that forced us to return.” These pressures have increasingly been evident over time[4] and are increasingly pervasive with cuts to significant amounts of humanitarian aid especially in sectors such as education and health.
In this context, many refugees described feelings of increasing fear and hopelessness in Lebanon and felt that a new political reality in Syria may offer them new opportunities and possibilities. Feeding into return pressures and a lack of information on conditions in Syria were fears that Lebanese authorities may take the political opportunity to crack down harder on Syrian refugees in Lebanon (especially those without legal documentation) and/or that exemptions provided by the Lebanese General security Office (GSO), would only be temporary windows of opportunity to return to Syria without fear of retaliation or incurring high costs of financial penalties for overstaying.[5] The prospect of “go-and-see” visits[6] which provides the opportunity for Syrians to temporarily go back to Syria to assess conditions and make better and more informed decisions, have been severely limited in Lebanon with those doing so facing administrative consequences, including the loss of the refugee status and residency permits in Lebanon.
For some of those that intended to move back to Syria for good, once back in Syria they described difficult conditions and challenges securing basic goods and services including safe accommodation due to destroyed homes, insecure housing in need serious reconstruction, and high rents costs. [7] One refugee explained: “My firstvisit to Syria [after the fall of the Assad regime] was a shock… the house I had imagined we would return to all my life was reduced to nothing but columns […] it was a pile of rubble. I came back two months later, hoping the situation might improve or that we would find a solution, but nothing had changed. On the contrary, the situation was worse than I had expected.” Intermittent access to electricity, water, healthcare, and education as well high costs of living, inflated prices for everyday goods and services, and minimum job opportunities were seen to be insufficient for returnees to meet even their basic needs.
Back in Lebanon – increased vulnerability and protection risks
The reality of displacement and movement trends across the Lebanese-Syrian border have for years been fluid, determined by access to jobs, trade, education, healthcare etc. Following the fall of the Assad regime, many Syrian refugees made short temporary trips to Syria: families travelled to see their relatives in Syria whom for years they had not been able to see in person and/or male Syrians refugees went to assess the families’ prospects, some returned for medical reasons without any intention of permanent return, some used irregular border crossings and/or used smugglers who have been able to operate cross-border due to the border’s porous nature.[8] For others, conditions in Syria were not yet seen to be durable or conducive to a long-term move and many (although numbers are difficult to confirm) decided to return to Lebanon. Not only are these dynamics not captured effectively in data, thereby skewing the numbers towards inflating those leaving Lebanon towards Syria, understanding movement as unidirectional fails to understand how Syrians have for decades, often seasonally and dependent on economic conditions, continuously crossed in and out of Lebanon, a dynamic that will likely continue with protracted uncertainty.
Once back in Lebanon, refugees reported being significantly more vulnerable upon return than before their departure. For those who had previously secured refugee status – a small number amounting to no more than 20% of refugees in Lebanon due to pressures by the Government of Lebanon (GOL) on UNHCR that led to the suspension of refugee status – and who had opted to engage in the UN supported return plan which requires that their refugee files be closed after crossing into Syria, it remains unclear whether once back in Lebanon they are able to reopen the file and ensure continued access to their refugee status and the international rights afforded under this status such as third-country resettlement and complementary pathways. For the majority of refugees who were not afforded such status, these Syrians who returned to Syria and then back to Lebanon also face compounded vulnerabilities. For instance, many had given up on their previous jobs and no longer had access to their shelters/rented homes forcing them to rely on informal and highly precarious housing alternatives and in search of new livelihood opportunities. Many were in a much more financially precarious situation than before their return to Syria, having had either sold their furniture and assets to afford the move and had also invested in expensive journey to Syria and incurred other costs necessary to support the move.
In such cases, these Syrian refugees are rendered invisible within existing protection mechanisms and remain extremely vulnerable and exposed to heightened risk of arrest, detention, or deportation, particularly at increasingly frequent and stringent security checkpoints. Families also reported serious barriers to re-enrolling children in schools and universities, as residency permits, often revoked following departure, are now routinely required for enrolment in both public and private schools, which has the effect to deny many Syrian children access to education. New vulnerabilities and needs that stem from new displacement may not be adequately reflected in vulnerability criteria nor addressed in humanitarian needs overviews leaving many without needed humanitarian and protection support.
Conclusion
Discussions around refugee returns have focused on supporting logistical and practical barriers of return of refugees and have been over-reliant on small sample size perception/intention surveys and unidirectional movement assumptions. This narrow focus has been used to justify a pivot towards investing dwindling humanitarian aid into return programming whilst sidestepping larger and more holistic discussions around the major structural and legal, political and institutional gaps that need to be addressed inside Syria to ensure refugees can return in a manner that is truly voluntary, safe, dignified and informed as per international protection principles. Such complex dynamics bring nuance to the flattened and simplistic narrative that Syria is safe for returns and that Syrians will return once and for good.
Rather, humanitarian and protection actors should seek to better understand cross-border movement dynamics, ensure continuous protection and humanitarian support for Syrians regardless of temporary movements or legal status, advocate for the preservation of refugee status and residency in Lebanon, and seek to prevent further cycles of legal, social and economic vulnerability. Equally, efforts must be directed toward the legal, security, humanitarian and development conditions inside Syria that once addressed, can ensure that returns are genuinely voluntary, safe, dignified and informed. Without the basic, durable and safety conditions in place, current return approaches risk reproducing unsustainable returns, triggering further displacements and instability and deepening the vulnerability of Syrians.
[1] UNHCR Protection sector Working Group, 20 January 2026.
[2] ACHR – Syrian Refugees Face Arrest, Disappearance, and Torture During UN-Supported Return Plan, 2 October 2025. See: https://achrights.org/en/2025/10/02/15965/
[3] Access Center For Human Rights (ACHR) – Internal Dashboard data collection system, 2025.
[4] The Lebanon Return Refugee Plan- From the Perspective of Syrian Returnees Engaging in the Return Program, 24 September 2025. See: https://achrights.org/en/2025/09/24/15951/
[5] Lebanese General Security Circular : https://www.general-security.gov.lb/ar/posts/490
[6] “Go-and-see” visits are recognized under international refugee law and do not constitute voluntary repatriation nor do they in themselves justify the revoke of refugee status, Syrians are facing significant barriers to register again with UNHCR and open a new file when back to Lebanon.
[7] ACHR – Position paper – A practical barrier to voluntary, dignified and safe refugee returns and a key tenant in the future of justice and accountability in Syria, 20 January 2026.
See: https://achrights.org/en/2026/01/20/16188/
[8] ACHR Statement – One Year after the Lebanon-Israel War, 25 September 2025. See: https://achrights.org/en/2025/09/24/15943/