The Lebanese Armed Forces and Cypriot authorities work together to keep refugees from reaching Europe, then deport them to danger in Syria, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 90-page report, "'I Can't Go Home, Stay Here, or Leave': Pushbacks and Pullbacks of Syrian Refugees from Cyprus and Lebanon," documents why Syrian refugees in Lebanon are desperate to leave and try to reach Europe; and how the Lebanese army has intercepted, pulled them back, and summarily expelled them to Syria. In tandem, the Cypriot Coast Guard and other Cypriot security forces have sent Syrians whose boats reached Cyprus back to Lebanon, without regard to their refugee status or risk of being expelled to Syria. Many of those sent back to Lebanon by Cyprus were immediately expelled to Syria by the Lebanese army.
Human Rights watch interviewed 16 Syrian refugees who had tried to leave Lebanon irregularly by boat between August 2021 and September 2023. Human Rights Watch also reviewed and verified photographs and videos sent directly from interviewees, accessed aircraft and boat tracking data to corroborate interviewee accounts, and submitted freedom of information requests to obtain European Union funding documents. Human Rights Watch documented cases of people sent back between August 2021 and September 2023, but Lebanon confirmed to Human Rights Watch that it expelled Cyprus-returned Syrians in April 2024, and publicly announced new pullbacks in August 2024.
"By preventing Syrian refugees from leaving to seek protection elsewhere, and then forcibly returning them to Syria, Lebanon violates the fundamental prohibition on returning a refugee to face persecution, while the European Union helps pay the bills," said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Cyprus also violates this prohibition by pushing refugees back to Lebanon where they risk being sent to danger in Syria."
The EU and its member states have provided various Lebanese security authorities with as much as €16.7 million in funding from 2020 to 2023 to implement border management projects mainly aimed at enhancing Lebanon's ability to curb irregular migration. As recently as May 2024, it allotted a broader €1 billion package to Lebanon through 2027, including money to the "Lebanese Armed Forces and other security forces with equipment and training for border management and to fight against smuggling."
Human Rights Watch shared its findings and invited comments from 12 relevant agencies, including the governments of Lebanon and Cyprus, EU institutions and agencies, and private entities. Ten of them responded.
Cypriot authorities have collectively expelled hundreds of Syrian asylum seekers without allowing them access to asylum procedures, forcing them onto vessels that traveled directly back to Lebanon. People expelled said that Lebanese army officers handed them directly to Syrian soldiers and unidentified armed men inside Syria.
A 44-year-old Syrian woman said that after the Cypriot Coast Guard intercepted their boat, officers "started grabbing us and shoving us" onto the return vessel, and "used a taser and baton" on her husband. "The blood came from his nose and mouth, everywhere," she said. Once back in Lebanon, she said, the "army drove us from the port … to a no-man's land in between the [Syrian and Lebanese] borders … telling us to run to the other side." She said the Syrian army detained her and her family for nine days.
Once in Syria, the expelled refugees faced not only detention by the Syrian army, but extortion by armed men for payment to be smuggled back to Lebanon.
Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita in the world, including 1.5 million Syrian refugees, while experiencing multiple compounding crises that have brought about dire socioeconomic conditions for everyone living there. Those conditions contribute to the circumstances driving many Syrian refugees to leave for Europe. Lacking legal migration pathways and fearing persecution in Syria, many interviewees said irregular boat crossings were their only available pathway to a secure, normal life.
Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security, which controls entry and residency status for foreigners, reported arresting or returning 821 Syrians on 15 boats attempting to leave Lebanon between January 1, 2022, and August 1, 2024.
In one case, the Lebanese army, in a joint rescue operation with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, rescued 200 passengers from a sinking boat, and took them back to Lebanon's Tripoli port on January 1, 2023. The army then summarily expelled those Syrians via the Wadi Khaled crossing in northern Lebanon. Interviewees said they repeatedly pleaded with both the Lebanese army and UN officers not to take them back to Lebanon because they feared expulsion to Syria.
Interviewees whose boats managed to reach Cypriot waters described Cypriot Coast Guard vessels using dangerous maneuvering tactics to intercept the boats. The Coast Guard also intercepted one boat and then left it to drift overnight without offering the people onboard food or other assistance. Cypriot officers zip-tied the wrists of an unaccompanied 15-year-old boy and loaded him onto a Cypriot vessel that returned him directly to Beirut's port. The army then immediately expelled the child together with a group of other Syrians via the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.
These summary expulsions are in breach of Lebanon's obligations as a party to the UN Convention Against Torture and under the customary international law principle of nonrefoulement not to forcibly return people to countries where they face a risk of torture or persecution. The detention and ill-treatment of children, family separation, and other abuses violate Lebanon's children's rights obligations.
Cyprus' pushbacks are collective expulsions prohibited under the European Convention on Human Rights, and violate the prohibition on indirect, chain, or secondary refoulement.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) mandated to provide international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees, maintains that Syria is unsafe for forced returns and that it is neither facilitating nor promoting voluntary returns.
Human Rights Watch found that the EU and some of its member states have contributed substantial funds to Lebanon border management without genuine guarantees to ensure EU funds are not used by entities responsible for violations nor contribute to perpetuating violations.
"The EU has long rewarded Lebanon for keeping migrants from reaching Europe with migration management projects," Hardman said. "Instead of outsourcing abuses, the EU and other donors should immediately establish direct, independent mechanisms to monitor human rights compliance in Lebanese border-control operations."
