Reports & Papers

The 2022 Syria Joint Damage Assessment (DA) provides an overview of the effects of the ongoing conflict in Syria. The DA is a broad-brush and largely remote-based exercise, focusing on 14 cities and 11 sectors. This report is the sixth World Bank Group assessment conducted during the ongoing conflict; however, it is the first conducted jointly with the EU.

Property confiscation has been a longstanding policy of the Syrian regime since the 1960s, often employed to achieve specific economic objectives or as a means of political control and punishment.

This study offers an original analysis into the nature of the governance of the land registry system in three Syrian cities controlled by armed non-state actors during the civil war. It adopts aqualitative methodology to compare Douma, al Raqqa and Idlib

This investigative report highlights the ongoing, systematic demolition and looting of displaced civilians’ homes in areas recaptured by pro-Damascus forces across the country.

A report on HLP rights violations in northern Syria, particularly in areas inhabited by Kurds.

This 121-page report sheds light on discrimination projects aiming at demographic changes in areas historically populated by Kurds in Syria.

Given that voluntary repatriation and safe return often overlap, the paper explores this intersection amid larger conversations surrounding the Lebanese Government’s approach to return, the stance of UNHCR and its role, as well as regional and international conversations on how return can take place durably and sustainably.

This article provides a legal analysis of law No. 10 of 2018.

This article provides a legal analysis of the application of the rubble removal law in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp.

This investigative report uncovers the manipulation of property rights and compensation in the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus.

This article published in The Guardian reports about information that Assad forces are in partnership with networks stripping exiles of their property and leaving them nothing to return to.

This 1-hour online discussion on the impact of the earthquake on HLP rights in Syria was held on March 22, 2023

This report highlights the February 06 earthquake's impact on infrastructure across affected areas and the varied responses by local authorities, including the Syrian regime, the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government, and the Syrian Salvation Government, the political arm of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.

Watch our online discussion on HLP rights in Syria featuring Mazen Ezzi of the The Syria Report, Jon Unruh of McGill University and Mutasem Syoufi of The Day After organisation.

In this report, The Syria Report summarises a selection of the housing, land, and property issues it covered in depth throughout the first six months of 2022. These issues, which were featured in dozens of articles, can be categorised into the following main themes: 

Efforts to thwart the trafficking of conflict commodities to finance wars constitute an ongoing endeavour. As specific approaches become effective for certain commodities, belligerent actors pursue new forms of exploitation.

This paper proposes to explore the role played by the different representations of land and shows how the co-presence and competition between these different conceptions shape public action on precarious settlements.

This article proposes to show the recent evolution of policies regarding informal settlement in Damascus, the social views and visions that fuel them and the role played by the concept of social mixity in the different urban planning approaches present in Damascus today.

This article discusses policies towards informal settlements in Syria before and during the uprising with a special focus on the case study of urban policies in the metropolitan area of Damascus.

This 64-page report focuses on the voices, experiences, and opinions of Syrians to establish whether the conditions in Syria are suitable for facilitating the return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).