Fresh Syria clashes swell refugee numbers

In the Lebanese border town of Arsal, a middle-aged woman clutches a small baby. The four month-old girl – assumed to be orphaned - was pulled from the rubble after shelling destroyed the neighbourhood in central Syria where she and the woman lived. The two made the arduous eight-hour trek across the mountains to Lebanon, at times crawling to avoid snipers.

“There’s no plan at the moment,” says the woman, cradling her tiny charge. “We’re waiting for God’s mercy.”

The Syrian conflict has intensified in recent weeks, with the regime increasing aerial bombardments of opposition areas and rebel fighters using heavy weapons captured on the battlefield. The upsurge in fighting has sent a new surge of refugees into neighbouring countries, and aid agencies and host countries are scrambling to respond.

Just two months ago, the UN High Commission for Refugees launched a fundraising appeal anticipating that the conflict would have generated 185,000 refugees by the end of the year. Last week, the agency announced that the figure had already surpassed 200,000.

Camps are struggling to process the new arrivals quickly enough, and host countries that are already suffering from spillover effects of the Syrian conflict are wondering how they will sustain the growing number of Syrians in a region where refugee flows are historically associated with instability.

Lebanon, which hosts over 50,000 Syrian refugees, is currently fraught with tension between long-standing supporters and opponents of the regime in Damascus.

Observers say a desire to avoid provoking either group has resulted in Lebanon taking a more hands-off approach to the refugee influx than Turkey and Jordan, with Beirut helping aid agencies but not allowing the construction of refugee camps.

Instead Syrians, who often have family or social ties across the border, have largely been absorbed in to host communities, either staying with families or renting flats. But the UNHCR says a growing minority are now living in collective shelters such as schools.

But in Arsal, as in other Lebanese towns, it is apparent that even sympathetic host communities are starting to struggle. The head of the municipality says the infrastructure “cannot cope” with the estimated 5,000 new arrivals, while some refugees say locals have become hostile and started to throw stones at them.

In many ways, the country bearing the brunt of the refugee influx is Turkey, which at present hosts 80,000 people in camps on its territory.

With some 8,000 people waiting on the border to cross into its territory, the Turkish government is scrambling to prepare six more camps to accommodate 40,000 people, which it says will all be ready by the middle of next month. Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, was due to ask the UN Security Council on Thursday to allow the UN to begin work on setting up a safe zone on the Syrian side of the border.

“For any part of the world having 10,000 people approach the border in a very short time would be a challenge but it is important that the border remains open,” Carol Batchelor, the UNHCR’s representative in Turkey, told the FT.

Despite government denials reports of tension between locals and refugees, some residents in southern Turkey openly express their sympathy for Bashar al-Assad’s regime and complain about the disruption of economic links on which the region partly depended.

While most of the Syrian refugees are Sunnis, many Turkish citizens in the border region are Alevis, a separate branch of Islam, and some are Arabic-speaking Alawites, like Mr Assad and his core supporters in Syria.

Moreover, while Turkey has a Sunni majority, an opinion poll on Thursday said two-thirds of the population oppose government policy on Syria.

There are also fears that the camps could host fighters rather than genuine refugees. Opposition members of parliament have drawn attention to one refugee camp, which they say they suspect hosts fighters for the rebel Free Syria Army, and the FSA openly says it is headquartered in southern Turkey.

Many analysts and Turks see the recent increased activity by violent Kurdish militants as Syria’s riposte.

In Jordan, meanwhile, UNHCR workers have been racing to pitch new tents in the Zaatari refugee camp after the rate of inflows doubled last week. A riot against conditions in Zaatari, home to 21,000 of Jordan’s 72,000 refugees, on Tuesday reportedly left 28 police injured.

Aid-dependent Jordan has recently faced its own economy-related protests and analysts say it is likely to ask donors for more money to avoid the refugee population straining resources further.

Back in Arsal, the destitute refugees are trying to work out how to survive what they expect to be a long stay. “When we first came here we said we’d be here for 10 days, maximum one month,” says one man. “We’ve been here six months now, so I don’t know when we can go back home.”