displaced – Syria Report

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Lands Belonging to Residents of Regime-Held Aleppo Areas Undergo Public Auction

19-09-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Hassan is trying to protect his family’s farmland after it was recently listed by the Directorate of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform in Aleppo governorate among properties offered for investment in public auctions. According to the Directorate, these lands in the southwest countryside of Aleppo are vacant and belong to people they describe as “absentees,” which include displaced persons and those forcibly expelled to opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria.

Since 2020, regime forces have established their military control over the region adjacent to the Damascus-Aleppo road M-5 in the southwest countryside of Aleppo, extending to the southern countryside of Idlib.

Local sources told The Syria Report that the lands being offered for investment in the southwest Aleppo countryside are located near the international M-5 highway, and administratively belong to villages and towns such as Kafr Aleppo, Al-Kaseebiya, Al-Bawabiya, Jeb Kas, and Arada. The region is known for rainfed grain crops such as wheat, barley, and lentils, and irrigated farming from wells, such as cotton and vegetables.

The Directorate of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform, located in the Jamiliya district of Aleppo city, published a list earlier this month of “absentee”-owned lands in the southwest countryside of Aleppo, in preparation for offering them for investment in public auctions. This list included Hassan’s family land. The Syria Report’s sources confirmed that all lands were listed for the upcoming public auctions, even though many of their owners are not absent but live in regime-controlled areas. Notably, some villages, like Al-Bawabiya and Al-Kaseebiya, are still considered closed military zones, and regime forces do not allow the displaced to return.

Hassan, who lives in regime-controlled Aleppo city, had planted the land last season through intermediaries from the pro-regime National Defence Militia, which controls parts of the southern countryside of Aleppo. Hassan was recently surprised to find his family’s six-hectare plot of land on the auction list.

The surprise discovery came after the death of Hassan’s father last year. The land is still listed under his father’s name in the Land Registry, which means it is currently communally owned amongst the heirs and has not yet been subdivided. To subdivide the property – that is, to divide it amongst the heirs, a legal inventory of inheritance needs to be carried out, determining each heir’s share of the land. Hassan and his siblings visited the Directorate of Agriculture, where an employee asked them to produce an inheritance inventory document. This would allow them to invest in the land without entering the auction, as they are direct relatives of the deceased.

The inheritance inventory document pertains to those whose death is confirmed either by factual proof or by legal judgment, according to the Personal Status Law No. 59 of 1953 and its executive instructions. It is a legal document intended to identify the deceased’s heirs who are entitled to inherit and their degree of kinship to the deceased.

The Council of Ministers had permitted, in its Decision No. 12011 issued in October 2022, for the first degree family members to invest in their vacant relatives’ lands intended for agricultural investment without entering public auctions. The council, relying on Ministry of Agriculture Letter No. 291 issued in September 2022, stipulated that immediate relatives – being the father, mother, daughter, and son – must announce the properties belonging to their relatives that they wish to invest in, 15 days prior to the date of the public auctions.

Indeed, the Directorate of Agriculture and Agricultural Reform in Aleppo announced several days ago the times and dates that they will hold special relative auctions for the lands being offered for investment in the southwest Aleppo countryside, according to local sources. The Directorate gave a deadline of October 5, 2023 for those interested in investing in their relatives’ lands to provide the necessary documents to enter the special auctions.

Huda, another area resident, is coping with a problem similar to Hassan’s. She is working to prevent the land of her father-in-law, that is, the father of her ailing husband, from undergoing public auction.

Huda went in early September to the Directorate of Agriculture in Aleppo to obtain a “No Objection” document to remove the land from the list being offered for investment in the southwest Aleppo countryside. The Directorate grants this approval if the landowner’s name is not listed in the wanted lists circulated by the security agencies to the directorates and institutions. This document allows the landowner to cultivate or lease the land, and its purpose is to account for the properties of those actually absent from the area, or those displaced outside the regime-controlled areas.

Huda’s father-in-law also resides in regime-controlled areas, but he is ill and unable to tend to the Directorate of Agriculture in person. During her visit to the Directorate of Agriculture, Huda had a property registration statement confirming her father-in-law’s ownership of the two-and-a-half hectare plot of land, as well as a copy of his ID. The employee at the Directorate refused to provide Huda with the “No Objection” document, insisting that the landowner must be present in person, carrying proof of his land ownership and identification. After much debate, the employee agreed that one of the landowner’s children or his wife could attend on their behalf.

HTS-Affiliated Contracting Company Begins Work on Residential Project in Idlib

08-08-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Al-Raqi Construction Company has begun implementing a residential project west of the city of Idlib to shelter displaced families currently living in camps on the city’s outskirts. The project is supported by three entities: the Turkey Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), which operates under the supervision of the Turkish Ministry of Interior; and two NGOs: the Deniz Feneri Association and the Way of Life Association, which operates in Turkey.

The project consists of 1,000 individual housing units, each measuring 85 square metres, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. It is located in a 65-hectare plot of public land belonging to the village of Kafr Jales, a source in the village told The Syria Report’s local correspondent. The Directorate of Camp Affairs within the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), which in turn is affiliated with the hardline Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that controls Idlib, is the body that chose the project site.

The area has rugged mountainous terrain without trees, which means land preparation and road construction make up a significant part of the housing project’s budget. A few dozen displaced people, most of whom were livestock breeders, had previously set up an informal camp in this area. The Directorate of Camp Affairs forced them to move to organised camps in the Atma area bordering Turkey.

AFAD paid for land levelling operations at the project site, while Deniz Feneri and Way of Life financed implementation of the remaining construction work. According to sources in the Directorate of Camp Affairs, the future recipients of housing in the project are displaced people currently residing in informal camps in the Kafr Jales area. However, as is usually the case, those close to HTS, including the families of its recruits and SSG employees, may be prioritised to receive housing within the project.

The Syria Report reached out to Deniz Feneri and Way of Life for comment on the land ownership and nature of the housing project, as well as whom it would benefit, but received no response.

The contract for implementing the project was awarded to Al-Raqi Construction Company, without competition. Sources confirmed to The Syria Report that there was a tender for the project, but no announcement, making it not a genuine tender process. Since the company was founded in 2020, nearly all housing projects and camps for IDPs in HTS-controlled areas have been implemented by Al-Raqi.

Al-Raqi specialises in implementing various contracting projects in HTS areas, from residential units and camps to road construction and other projects. The company is currently run by HTS commander AbdulRahman Salama, also known as Abu Ibrahim Salama. Salama, who is from the city of Andan north of Aleppo, held the position of Emir of Aleppo in Jabhat Al-Nusra during the opposition’s control of eastern Aleppo between 2012 and 2016.

There are rumours that Al-Raqi manages HTS’ investments and that some of the group’s leaders invest their money in the company. Al-Raqi carries out some for-profit projects, such as a residential compound called New Sarmada City, inhabited by the wealthy of Idlib, those close to HTS, and its leaders, and other projects such as shopping malls. It is not known who the members of the company’s board of directors are, but there are reports that they include prominent figures in HTS, some of whom own shares in it.

Al-Raqi constructed the Aleppo-Bab Al-Hawa road connecting the cities of Sarmada and Al-Dana, north of Idlib, on behalf of the SSG. Abu Ibrahim Salama appeared alongside the group leader, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, during the inauguration and opening ceremony of the road. The company is also undertaking the construction of the Bab Al-Hawa-Idlib road, and has completed about a third of it over the past two years.

The company is also building housing projects for displaced residents living in camps; such as a camp for the displaced in the Mishhad Rohin area, and the village of Kamouna for the forcibly displaced north of the town of Batbu, in addition to constructing Al-Bar village for the displaced in Jabal Klil. The company is currently drilling wells in the new Babesqa city project, including some residential blocks, an elevated water tank, a mosque and a school, paving the streets and extending the city’s electrical and internet lines.

An informed source told The Syria Report that other contracting companies could not get similar projects even if they submitted lower price bids in formal tenders. In most cases, the entities funding such projects, usually NGOs, concede to Al-Raqi to implement those projects, under pressure from HTS. In return, these organisations continue to finance their projects in Idlib without facing harassment.

Apart from its work in contracting, between 2021 and 2022, Al-Raqi implemented industrial projects, the most important of which is a factory for the production of iron for reinforced concrete works near the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing. The factory is meant to receive scrap and recycle it. There are also several nearby stoneworks factories and workshops for making tiles and concrete blocks, which use heavy machinery Al-Raqi bought from Turkey. Al-Raqi also took over public property in the mountainous areas around the Bab Al-Hawa region and the Barisha, Al-Wastani, and Al-Ala northwest Idlib highlands, which have a limestone rock formation, in order to produce white stone. The company is working on opening workshops and sawmills for the white limestone, part of which it exports through Turkey to the Gulf states and Egypt.

Raids Target Displaced Bedouin Communities in Daraa and Suweida

02-05-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Regime forces and local pro-regime militias from Daraa have been attacking and harassing displaced Bedouin communities living in encampments between the Suweida and Daraa governorates in recent weeks to drive them out. The raids have pushed many displaced families to flee to the eastern Badia desert in the Suweida governorate for safety.

Between Suweida and Daraa governorates, there are encampments of displaced people, mostly Bedouin tribespeople from Suweida who fled their homes at different points during the war between 2014 and 2020. The largest wave of displacement happened in 2015 from Al-Asfar, an area in the rural northeastern parts of the Suweida governorate with the highest number of Bedouin. At the time, fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq, Syria, and later opposition factions, seized control of the area before regime forces recaptured it in 2018.

The clashes damaged local infrastructure and most homes in the area’s ten villages. Bedouins in Syria, which were previously nomadic, are now sedentary and live in villages, contrary to what their name suggests. Regime forces also completely bulldozed some Bedouin villages in the Al-Lajat area in 2018, including the village of Haush Hamad. Despite Russian mediation in 2019, regime forces only granted permission for some Bedouin residents of northeastern Suweida governorate to return home under certain conditions. Only a small number of them actually made the return, most of them livestock herders. The main reason residents have avoided returning is the government’s failure to rehabilitate infrastructure and repair the electricity and water networks promptly. Regime forces and the Palestine Liberation Army, a pro-regime militia, also run numerous checkpoints in the area and have taken control of some homes and schools as military bases. Unexploded shells and landmines are spread throughout the area as well.

The largest encampments of displaced Bedouins are between the towns of Bousra Al-Sham in Daraa and Al-Qurayya in Suweida, in addition to some other encampments in the flatlands of Al-Mliha, Sama Al-Henaidat, Nahta and Al-Dara. Other camps are in the flatlands of Ara, Kanaker, Al-Thaala, Al-Aslaha, Sukkaka, and Um Walid. In addition, there are smaller refuges in the Al-Lajat area.

Around 1,000 people are today living in the flatlands between Sama Al-Heneidat in western Suweida and Al-Mliha in eastern Daraa alone. The displaced families live in over 80 canvas tents spread out across farmlands. Some of them pay the landowners to stay there, while others live on about two dozen farms belonging to residents of Daraa and Suweida. Displaced families have in recent years turned to farm labour as a source of income, with landowners in the area depending on them for work, harvesting, guarding farmland and taking care of livestock. As a result, they have become the main driving workforce in the local economy, some even now owning land, houses, and farms.

But on April 27, regime forces and allied militias put a security cordon around the area between Sama Al-Henaidat and Al-Mliha, then stormed dozens of tents and farms where the displaced Bedouin families had been living. The raids included arrests, destruction, and the looting of property and tents and aimed to remove “strangers” from the area, according to those who took part.

Participating in the regime raids was a pro-regime militia formed from a “reconciliation” faction in Daraa. Such factions are former opposition forces that reconciled with the regime in 2018 and began coordinating with regime forces. Last month’s raids lasted four hours, during which militants attacked and insulted the displaced Bedouin, including the women. They also stole money, furniture, cars, motorbikes, and livestock and dismantled some tents. Militia members also threatened the Bedouin families telling them to leave the area. The militants withdrew after arresting nine displaced Bedouin people and handing them over to the Military Intelligence branch in Daraa. Authorities released the nine detainees after a short interrogation.

Then, on the morning of April 29, fighters from the Eighth Brigade of the Fifth Corps stormed several Bedouin homes in the village of Jbib, also stealing their cars, motorbikes and some other belongings. The Eighth Brigade is based in Busra Al-Sham and commanded by Ahmad Al-Awda. It is among the most prominent reconciliation factions, operating under Military Intelligence and backed by Russia. The brigade’s raid on Jbib came three days after they gave an ultimatum to displaced Bedouin families to leave.

As a result of the raids, many families of displaced Bedouin were displaced and fled into eastern Suweida’s Badia desert area. Military Intelligence escorted them, offering protection during their move in exchange for payment.

According to a local correspondent for The Syria Report, the attacking forces accuse the Bedouin encampments of harbouring drug traffickers and others involved in organised crime. However, these accusations appear exaggerated, placing the blame for all the area’s security problems on the displaced Bedouins amid rising hostility by reconciliation factions in eastern Daraa.

A displaced man from the village of Al-Qassar told The Syria Report that he has been living in the area since 2018 and works as a guard for a vegetable farm. He also owns some livestock, which were stolen in the latest raid. He said he could not return to his home village in northeastern Suweida because his house was destroyed by shelling in 2017. The man added that he is wanted for mandatory military service, and returning home would mean having to undergo security settlement with the Military Intelligence branch in Daraa and committing to joining the military within a short deadline. Finally, fleeing the Badia desert area, as others have done, would be difficult following years of drought and dangerous security conditions there.

Syrians Deported from Lebanon Face HLP Violations Upon Their Return

02-05-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

In recent weeks, Lebanese authorities have arrested hundreds of displaced Syrians without official residency papers and deported dozens back to Syria. Human rights groups have warned that the deportations put victims at risk of persecution, including illegal and arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, and forced disappearance by Syrian security forces. Some of the deportees also face challenges related to housing, land, and property rights.

Official Lebanese figures estimate between 1.50 and 2.08 million Syrians residing in Lebanon, a large portion of whom are formally registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. However, they have been unable to obtain official residency papers in Lebanon due to complex administrative procedures. Lebanese authorities have justified the recent spate of raids, arrests and deportations by citing an old decree issued by the Higher Defence Council in 2019 that ordered the deportation of Syrians who entered Lebanon via informal border crossings.

Ibrahim is a Syrian man from Qusayr, a rural city in the southern part of the Homs governorate near the border with Lebanon. He owns an Arab-style house there with a front garden, all of which is officially listed under his name in the Land Registry. Ibrahim also holds a “green tabu” title deed for the property.

Syrian opposition forces briefly controlled Qusayr in 2012-13 before regime forces and the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah captured it in 2013, displacing the residents. Ibrahim fled to Lebanon through an informal border crossing and now lives in Zahleh, a city in the Bekaa Valley. At first, he obtained official residency papers in Lebanon but recently failed to renew them due to new restrictions by Lebanese authorities.

A Lebanese Military Intelligence patrol stopped Ibrahim on his way to work last week at a temporary checkpoint set up along a public road. They then deported him and other detained Syrians to the border area between Lebanon and Syria at the Masnaa crossing, where the Lebanese authorities handed deportees to a Syrian Military Intelligence detachment. From there, Ibrahim underwent a security check and received a Ministry of Interior document informing him he had 15 days to begin his mandatory conscription in the Syrian army.

Afterwards, he entered Syrian territory and headed to his hometown just outside Qusayr. But when he arrived, Ibrahim was shocked to find a family of strangers living in his house who refused to leave. He told The Syria Report that the family was from the city of Homs and consisted of a father who was a member of Military Intelligence and two adult sons, one who is a volunteer in Military Intelligence and the other a member of Lebanese Hezbollah. Ibrahim filed a complaint at the police station, where an officer advised him to seek the help of the judiciary to reclaim his extorted home. Property extortion is when someone seizes another person’s property without the latter’s consent, a legal property deed, or legitimate reason.

Several families have previously voluntarily returned to Qusayr before Ibrahim but were unable to reclaim their extorted homes from military members and officers and Hezbollah fighters, even after filing official complaints and lawsuits. Ibrahim was advised to join the army and then file the lawsuit, which would strengthen his position given that the case would involve the seizure of a home belonging to a military member.

Qusayr is treated somewhat differently from other areas in Syria as it is today considered a sphere of influence for Hezbollah, which runs military bases and training camps there. Only Syrian regime forces and allied militia members are allowed to settle in the area.

Ahmad, another young man from Qusayr, faces a similar situation. Syrian members of Hezbollah now occupy his house. Like Ibrahim, Ahmad has a “green tabu” deed for his Arab-style house near the Lebanese border, which was damaged during wartime clashes. Hezbollah converted the house into what appears to be a military site for its members. However, unlike Ibrahim, Ahmad cannot reclaim his house even if he joined the army and getting the property back would be a long and arduous process with no guarantee of success. As such, Ahmad decided to return to Lebanon through an informal crossing.

Meanwhile, Adnan was displaced from his hometown in the countryside just west of Damascus alongside his family in 2013 during battles between regime and opposition forces and resettled in Lebanon. Adnan’s brother was an opposition fighter who was killed during the clashes with the regime’s Fourth Division popular committees, which took control of their hometown in 2016. As retribution for his brother’s fighting, these popular committees seized Adnan’s house and used it as a headquarters for their members. Since 2017, they have also been cultivating and harvesting crops on Adnan’s land without his consent.

In recent days, the Lebanese army arrested Adnan and more than 50 other Syrians during a raid on homes in the Burj Hammoud neighbourhood just outside Beirut. The detainees faced verbal and physical abuse before authorities took them to the border and left them at the Masnaa Crossing. Syrian Military Intelligence arrested Adnan, but they released him because he was not wanted by any security agencies or for military conscription. Adnan says he cannot demand his house back unless he coordinates with the committees that seized it. Making such a demand through the judiciary could expose him to potential retaliation or being framed and arrested for a made-up charge.

Lebanese authorities also recently arrested and deported four Syrian refugees during a raid on a camp in Al-Qaraoun in the western Bekaa Valley. The four detainees were displaced from the Aleppo governorate town of Khanasir in 2012 after militias affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps took control of the area. The government has banned original residents from returning to the area as those militias now consider it a closed military zone. With no other options, the four detainees returned to Lebanon from Syria that same day after reaching out to a Lebanese people smuggler and paying USD 150 for the journey.

Khalil fled to Lebanon from a rural area near Salamieh in the Hama governorate in 2012. He owns an Arab-style house and 15 hectares of farmland. However, the area was devastated during clashes between opposition and regime forces. Several days ago, Lebanese authorities arrested Khalil at a temporary checkpoint on the Zahleh highway. Notably, authorities left Khalil and the others detained with him at the Masnaa crossing, where smugglers with ties to the Fourth Division found them and offered to take them back across the border into Lebanon for USD 100 each. They took the offer and went back to Lebanon.

By this point, Khalil’s house in rural Hama had been completely destroyed, and his land was seized and cultivated by people with ties to the regime. During displacement, Khalil also lost the title deeds for the house and his land. In addition, the area lacks electricity and other infrastructure, and unexploded landmines there mean returning would be too dangerous for Khalil and his family.