Current Conditions Not Safe For Syrian Refugees To Return - SNC

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2018) The current conditions in Syria are not safe for the Syrian refugees to go back to the country, a current member of the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) and a member of the Political committee of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SOC) told Sputnik.

"You have to be reasonable. You have half of the population of Syria between IDPs and refugees. The majority of their homes destroyed, their cities don't have enough infrastructure to support them, so there are huge security risks for the lives of these guys if they come back to Syria," Hadi al-Bahra said on Friday. "Many of them don't want to serve in the army to kill other Syrians... And it has to be a voluntary return. And they have to go back to a safe zone and in a dignified manner. So, these conditions all are not available currently in Syria.

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Al-Bahra said the safe return of Syrian refugees is not possible without establishing a political settlement.

When asked about a reconstruction of the war-torn country, al-Bahra stated, "Syria cannot be built by resources from Syria alone."

"Everybody in the international community has really to actively participate in rebuilding Syria, to enforce the peace in Syria," he said.

Yet the reconstruction also cannot be achieved without a just implementation of a political settlement via the Geneva process, al-Bahra said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees, over 56,000 refugees have returned to Syria from abroad since July. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that there are some 5.6 million Syrian refugees and about 6.6 million internally displaced people as of March 2018.