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  • BADIL's Oral Statement - item3 - general debate - 47th meeting 34th regular session UN human rights council
BADIL's Oral Statement - item3 - general debate - 47th meeting 34th regular session UN human rights council
PR/EN/230317/24

Mister President,

According to UNRWA, 560,000 Palestinian refugees were living in Syria prior to the outbreak of the situation in 2011, which represented 3 percent of the Syrian population and 10% of Palestine registered refugees. Today around 110,000 have fled the country, and of the estimated 450,000 remaining, 280,000 are internally displaced and 45,000 are trapped in hard-to-reach or isolated areas such as the camps of Yarmouk, Khan Eshieh, Muzeireb, and Jillin in Dera’a.

The conflict highlights the extreme vulnerability of Palestinian refugees in Syria due to the second (or more) displacements they are subjected to. Their special legal status makes them face legal vacuums and discrimination. 

First, in Syria, Palestinian refugee camps have been the theater of sieges and starving operations as well as bombings despite their special protection and the civil status they are entitled to as refugee camps. After the failure of the cease-fire in 2016, humanitarian conditions continued to deteriorate. According to UNRWA, approximately 95 per cent of Palestinian refugees in Syria are in need of sustained assistance as they face humanitarian needs, severe protection threats, and significant issues in human development.

Second, approximately 47,000 Palestinians refugees who fled the conflict towards Syria’s neighboring countries are facing discrimination and hard socioeconomic conditions leading to the marginalization of their existence. In Lebanon, the reluctance to open new camps overcrowds already existing camps and 90 percent of Palestinian refugees are living under the poverty threshold.

In addition, in 2012, Jordan, later followed by Lebanon, decided to close off their borders to Palestinian refugees from Syria and to send them back to the war-zone. BADIL strongly condemns this clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention.

Third, the international community has failed to provide the effective protection Palestinian refugees from Syria are entitled to as a secondarily displaced people. Upon their arrival to European countries, Palestinians refugees again face the whole asylum seeking procedure, despite their already recognized refugee status. They also face discrimination as their asylum claim can be considered neither Palestinian nor Syrian because they lack citizenship and ID papers in general.

Mr. President,
  • BADIL strongly condemns this ongoing Nakba constantly displacing Palestinians, and the unsuitability of the international and legal protection to manage the multiple displacements occurring since 1948;
  • BADIL calls on Syria’s neighboring countries, as well as European countries to end the policy of compartmentalization between Palestinian and Syrian refugees fleeing the same threat for life and recalls that such policy is a clear violation of the principle of non-discrimination,
  • BADIL calls on UNRWA to enhance its efforts towards the special situation and extreme vulnerability of Palestinian refugees in and from Syria.

I thank you Mister President