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Damascus - "It was a terrifying night. We walked for two hours among rocks and mud until we reached a side road where a passenger vehicle was waiting to transport us to Bekaa, and from there we easily moved to Beirut," recounts Heba Semaan, a Syrian who entered Lebanon last month through an irregular mountainous route in the bordering Wadi Khaled area, northeast Lebanon.
Heba, a 28-year-old hairdresser, tells that she had no other choice but to leave, as she was jobless for about four months following the closure of the beauty shop she worked at in Syria due to a lack of customers.
The estimated number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is about two million and one hundred thousand individuals.
## A Perilous Journey
Despite the worsening economic crisis in the neighboring country and the dire conditions of refugees there, thousands of Syrians from regime-controlled areas continue to migrate to Lebanon through unauthorized border crossings, mostly concentrated around the Qalamoun region in western Syria, Wadi Khaled, and the town of Al-Qusayr.
Refugees embark on journeys fraught with numerous dangers, including the risks of robbery and kidnapping by smuggling groups or bandits.
The Lebanese army announced last Thursday that it had thwarted the infiltration of 700 Syrians from Syrian territory towards Lebanon in just the past two weeks alone.
Military announcements in recent months repeatedly noted similar operations, thwarting smuggling attempts and illegal border crossings of Syrians as part of efforts to combat human smuggling and illegal entry into Lebanese territory.
Millions of Syrians have been living under the shadow of hunger for years due to an escalating economic crisis in the country, an unprecedented surge in food and basic goods prices, and a sharp decline in the purchasing power of Syrian salaries. The public sector average salary is about 250,000 Syrian pounds (approximately 17 dollars), while it reaches 600,000 (about 41 dollars) in the private sector.
Heba Semaan cites the main reason for her refuge to Lebanon as the deteriorating living conditions in Syria.
## Below the Poverty Line
"I was forced to sell half of my household furniture in the past months to cover the minimum home needs, including my mother's medication that recently doubled in price," she continues. "The situation in Beirut is better than in Damascus and its surroundings in terms of job opportunities and wages. Today, I can save 100 dollars to send to my family monthly. In Syria, my total monthly income did not exceed 700,000 pounds (48 dollars)."
Since 2021, about 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, according to UN reports.
Approximately 12.1 million Syrians - more than half of the population - suffer from food insecurity, as per the latest reports from the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency.
Alongside the economic crisis and poor living conditions in Syria, thousands of young men flee the country to avoid mandatory conscription in the regime's army.
Lebanon becomes a suitable option for these young men, given the stringent controls imposed by other neighboring countries like Turkey and Jordan against smuggling operations on their borders with Syria.
Yousef, a 23-year-old recent graduate from the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at Damascus University, plans to cross the border into Lebanon before his military service deferment ends next month.
Speaking to the network, he says, "With my military deferment ending, I'm faced with two choices: either stay confined to my apartment or neighborhood indefinitely or cross into Lebanon illegally, trying to work and save any money to migrate to Europe."
He concludes, "This is how the dreams of thousands of Syrian youths shift from striving for a bright future to merely trying to escape a slow death by despair and poverty."
Syrians choose irregular migration routes to Lebanon due to lower costs compared to formal migration, which requires owning or renting property in Lebanon to be granted residency, or coming for a work visit, hotel booking, or embassy appointment with documentation to get temporary entry permission.
According to several migrants who have spoken to the network, the cost of smuggling from Syria to Lebanon ranges between 100 to 120 dollars per person.
## Harsh Conditions
Syrians residing as residents or refugees in Lebanon face tough circumstances amid deteriorating economic conditions in the country. Successive Lebanese governments enforce policies to limit Syrian refugees, and some political parties use refugees as leverage against their opponents, contributing to racial tensions against them.
Human Rights Watch reported in July that Lebanon had deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, without due legal processes between April and May 2023.
Despite a lack of official public statistics on the number of arrests or deportations, a humanitarian source indicated that since April 2023, there had been over 100 raids, 2,200 arrests, and 1,800 deportations of Syrian refugees. Humanitarian workers stated that the 2023 deportation wave was particularly severe.
Although Damascus outwardly welcomes the return of refugees, most infrastructure in the areas from which refugees fled remains destroyed, with services barely reaching most neighborhoods in those cities.
United Nations figures show that around 3.9 million people in Lebanon need humanitarian assistance, including 1.5 million Syrians. Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees relative to its population size.
Observers note that members of the Fourth Division in the Syrian Army, led by Maher al-Assad, the brother of President Bashar al-Assad, are complicit in facilitating human smuggling from the Syrian side in exchange for fees paid by smugglers.
The Acting Minister of Displaced in the Lebanese interim government, Issam Charafeddine, revealed in a statement to "Voice of All Lebanon" last September that the number of Syrian refugees entering through unauthorized crossings since the beginning of 2023 until August exceeded 20,000.
He added that the length of the border between the two countries (387 kilometers) makes it difficult for the Lebanese army to effectively monitor it, thereby perpetuating continuous smuggling activities.
According to the Director-General of the Lebanese General Security, the estimated number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has reached about two million and one hundred thousand, with approximately 800,000 of them registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, accounting for 43% of Lebanon's population size.
