Lebanon, Algeria arrest about 450 Syrian refugees, and fears increase of handing them over to the Syrian regime and intelligence and the Observatory demands international action to save them
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the Lebanese authorities have arrested hundreds of Syrian refugees from camps in the border area with Syria, Arsal, and in the details confirmed by intersected sources: the Lebanese army and members of security forces raided several camps in Arsal area and arrested more than 400 Syrian citizens; of who have taken refuge in Lebanon in the past years fleeing the killing, arrest, and raids from the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them in different areas of the capital Damascus, the countryside of Homs, Hama, and several other Syrian areas, where fears for their lives continue to increase, from handing them or some of them over by the Lebanese authorities to regime’s intelligence, which threatens a real tragedy, and amid all the unknown fate that awaits the detainees, the international community and the concerned organizations are still watching without taking any action to prevent the Lebanese authorities from making arrests of this kind, which happened previously on the 30th of June 2017, where Syrian refugee camps were raided in the Lebanese area of Arsal adjacent to Qalamoun, and they arrested and abused hundreds of Syrian refugees, where the photographs that the Syrian Observatory Human Rights received had recalled the Shameful and inhumane acts carried out by the regime forces in al-Bayda area of Baniyas city in April 2011, when they arrested the citizens, gathered them in the town square, put them on the ground and insulted and tortured them back then.
And the fate of the Syrians detained by the Lebanese authorities is similar to that of the 43 Syrians detained by the Algerian authorities, where no international body moved to secure them, where the Syrian Observatory published yesterday that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the 43 Syrian refugees are still being held by the Algerian authorities in one of the states south of Algeria, while none of the international parties moved towards their cause, where the process of deporting them to Syria and handing them over to the regime will put their lives at risk, and they will face the inevitable fate of arrest and death, especially that a large number of them are defected of the regime forces of the officers and second officer ranks, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtained information from reliable sources, that tens of Syrian refugees in Algeria are suffering bad humanitarian conditions amid unknown fate chasing them, along with detaining them by the Algerian authorities, and in the details that the SOHR learnt; 43 Syrian citizens of those who are refugees in Algeria, have been still detained for about 2 months by the Algerian security authorities, where they are suffering tragic humanitarian conditions, and in voice records that the detainees have sent, it turned out that the detention is in Tamanrasset Province in the south of Algeria on the border with the African countryside of Niger, amid so tough medical and humanitarian conditions, and what worsened the situation and increased the fears over their lives, is that they were informed by the security authorities that they will be deported to Syria where they will be handed over to the government and security services of the Syrian regime.
The reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that among the 43 detained refugees, there are 25 persons that are defected of the regime forces of officers and sub-officers, including one who has cancer, and they got out of Daraa with imposing the regime forces’ control over it and the displacement of those who refused the agreement with the dignitaries of the province, in which they moved to the Syrian North after that they entered Turkey then they left to Sudan, until they arrived (with the help of one of the human trafficker) in Algeria in an attempt to reach Europe, but the Algerian authorities arrested them and when they received information that there are persons who are defected of the regime forces among them, the security authorities turned away from the option of releasing them, and detained then in 2 groups, and then they decided to send them back to the Syrian territory which will cause a humanitarian disaster in the case that they would handed over, as the lives of all of them are in danger, and they, and in the best conditions, will be detained and tortured or they will be met with death which the regime has been never stingy to provide for the Syrians.
We at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights call upon the Lebanese authorities to immediately release all the detained Syrian refugees, and we condemn this type of raids and mass arrests, an d we also call for the release of detainees in Lebanon and Algeria and not to hand over any of them to the Syrian regime’s authorities, we also hold the authorities of Lebanon and Algeria responsible for the lives of about 450 Syrian detainees in their jails and detention centers, and we call on the European Countries to actively act to secure a safe haven for those detained in the southern state of Tamanrasset south of Algeria.