There are now some 13 million Syrian refugees inside and outside the country or 60 per cent of the population, according to the US Pew Research Centre, which is the largest for any country in recent decades. Half of the refugees have been displaced inside the country, and their numbers have changed depending on the dynamics of the conflict. The other half have fled overseas to neighbouring or further countries. In February this year, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad repeated his invitation to those who have fled the eight-year war to return, claiming in front of a gathering of local council leaders that the state is seeking the return of everyone who has fled and the return of the refugees to their country. Most of Syria's political opposition figures have fled, along with millions impacted or threatened by the war, including the majority of young people of conscription age and all those summoned by the security agencies for participating in demonstrations or opposition activism, including relief or humanitarian or medical work. More than 50 per cent of Syria's professionals in the scientific, medical and engineering fields have fled. Every single Syrian household has seen at least one member escape abroad. Al-Assad's invitation to the refugees to return is being seen as a political trap to tighten his grip on power. The war has buried an entire generation of Syrian youth, forcing thousands into conscription and killing hundreds of thousands of others even though they had nothing to do with the war. Many fled the country out of fear of Al-Assad's forces, and they believe that returning would be a trap set by the regime, either to arrest them or have them disappear behind bars. Many have been accused of treason for fleeing the country, or forced to join an army that the regime has been trying to rehabilitate after heavy losses during the war. The regime claims that those who have been displaced or made into refugees have done so to escape terrorism or after armed groups took control of their areas. However, the facts reveal otherwise, as military operations by regime forces with the aid of foreign troops from Russia and Iran have targeted more civilian than military locations. The devastation of urban environments reveals how Al-Assad has attacked civilian areas that have used the revolutionary slogan “the people want the fall of the regime.” Random air strikes using rockets and barrel-bombs targeting residential areas and medical, educational and other locations have forced people to flee inside and outside the country. Some 6.7 million Syrians are displaced inside the country, according to the 2018 Global Report on Internal Displacement, and 5.7 million refugees are outside the country, according to the UN refugee agency the UNHCR. Although military operations have mostly ended in most regions, the return of the refugees has not happened. In the south, settlements were targeted for their return, but this did not create an attractive environment despite Russian guarantees. The latest survey on the return of the Syrian refugees by the UNHCR reveals that the lack of physical safety is a key factor that impacts the decisions of the refugees. Those who refused to return said they feared random acts of violence or revenge by the regime or the military, along with conscription or arrest. Only 103,000 refugees have returned to Syria over the past 18 months, most of them from Lebanon and Jordan. The harsh conditions as refugees forced many of them to return, even though they did not receive official guarantees about their concerns. A report by the World Bank has revealed that the security situation in Syria may be the most important factor in deciding whether to return. Another factor is the chance of receiving basic services such as healthcare and education, as well as the infrastructure in place. According to the report, putting an end to arbitrary detention and conscription and other violations of human and property rights could marginally increase the return of the refugees. The refugees would only return in large numbers after security and peace are in place, a stable and acceptable political solution has been reached, and reconstruction has begun, it said. The opposition believes the return of the refugees is connected to an interim phase that adopts the demands of the Syrian people and leads to the departure of Al-Assad from power. It will be difficult to convince those who fled Al-Assad's air strikes and rockets to return while he remains in power, since though the origin of the crisis he has been left to reign free by the international community. The regime has killed, tortured, destroyed or displaced on an unprecedented scale, and its violent reaction to the demands of the people has created sectarian and political faultlines that have divided society into partisan and sectarian cantons. It has also caused a fracture between those who chose to remain inside the country and those who fled in search of safety, the latter representing one quarter of the population. One of the reasons the regime wants the refugees to return is its concern that they could become a source of pressure on the global stage. The refugees who fled Al-Assad's jails have new prospects ahead of them that were unimaginable before. This concerns the regime in the medium and long run, as it is worried that any such seed could become a threat in the future, especially in the Syrian diaspora. The latter could eventually organise into civil groups and associations that in time could evolve into a pressure group that would be effective on both the local and global stages. Over the past eight years, the regime has destroyed urban areas and much of the country's economy. The war years have destroyed the industrial sector, especially in the Aleppo and Damascus suburbs where there was much small, medium and large-scale industry. Most Syrian businessmen have moved to Turkey or Egypt, and it will be difficult to convince them to return even if a political settlement is eventually reached. The agricultural sector has also collapsed, though it was already neglected by the state before the war due to policies that encouraged consumption, focused on services and abandoned farmers to deal with the withdrawal of the state from its social role. Military operations then prevented farmers from using their land, or they abandoned it and fled. The return of Syrian refugees is demanded by the regime so it can play this as a card in the reconstruction process, rehabilitating it on the global stage and returning the country's young people to their homes to revive the dilapidated military. There is a need to jumpstart the economy, since without a productive workforce the regime will not be able to survive. Studies reveal that the return of the refugees to Syria can only occur after the implementation of international resolutions on the transition of power, investigations into human-rights violations, the prosecution of war criminals, the freeing of political prisoners, the achievement of security and stability and the ending of the war on the ground. Guarantees must be provided to the refugees about their safety and that there will be no ethnic or religious cleansing. Demographic changes engineered by the regime, Iran and the Kurds must be reversed, and seized homes must be returned to their rightful owners. An international force must supervise the transition progress and monitor the return of the refugees. Syria's situation today is similar to that of Germany at the end of World War II. Military operations are ending, the country is occupied by several powers and the Russian occupation in particular cannot meet the needs of the people. It is a classic type of occupation, intended to loot Syria's wealth and not participate in rebuilding the country after Russian firepower destroyed it.
