The move by the United States to lift sweeping sanctions on Syria could encourage more refugees to return to their country and help spur investment, the head of the U.N. refugee agency in Lebanon said Thursday.
The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to permanently remove the so-called Caesar Act sanctions after President Donald Trump had previously lifted the penalties temporarily by executive order. The vote was part of the passage of the country’s annual defense spending bill, which Trump is expected to sign on Thursday.
An estimated 400,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024, following a nearly 14-year civil war.
UNHCR Lebanon Representative Karolina Lindholm Billing said around 1 million Syrian refugees remain in Lebanon, about 636,000 of whom are officially registered with the agency.
Altogether, more than 1 million refugees have returned from neighboring countries and nearly 2 million internally displaced Syrians have gone back to their homes since Assad’s fall.
Refugees returning from neighboring countries are eligible for cash payments of $600 per family upon return. However, many are coming back to destroyed homes and a lack of job opportunities, meaning the assistance does not go far. Without employment and reconstruction, many may leave again.
The aid provided so far by international organizations to help Syrians rebuild has been on a “relatively small scale, compared to the immense needs,” Billing said, adding that lifting U.S. sanctions could “make a big difference.”
The World Bank estimates it will cost $216 billion to rebuild homes and infrastructure damaged or destroyed during Syria’s civil war.
“So what is needed now is big money in terms of reconstruction and private sector investments in Syria that will create jobs,” Billing said, noting that the lifting of sanctions could help encourage such investment.
Lawmakers imposed the wide-reaching Caesar Act sanctions on Syria in 2019 to punish Assad for human rights abuses during the civil war.
Despite the temporary lifting of sanctions by executive order, there has been little movement on reconstruction. Advocates of a permanent repeal argued that international companies are unlikely to invest in rebuilding projects as long as there is a risk the sanctions could be reinstated.
New refugees face difficulties
While there has been a steady flow of returnees over the past year, other Syrians have fled the country since Assad’s ouster by Islamist-led insurgents.
Many of those fleeing are members of religious minorities who fear being targeted by the new authorities. In particular, members of the Alawite sect, to which Assad belonged, and Shiites fear revenge attacks because of the support Assad received during the war from Shiite-majority Iran and the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.
Hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence on Syria’s coast in March.
Although the situation has since calmed, Alawites continue to report sporadic sectarian attacks, including kidnappings and sexual assaults on women.
About 112,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon since Assad’s fall, Billing said. Arriving at a time of shrinking international aid, the new refugees have received very little assistance and generally lack legal status in Lebanon.
“Their main need, one of the things they raise with us all the time, is documentation, because they have no papers to prove they are in Lebanon, which makes it difficult for them to move around,” Billing said.
While some have returned to Syria after conditions stabilized in their areas, she said, “many are very afraid of being returned to Syria because what they fled were very violent events.”
Also, on Thursday, U.N. Deputy Humanitarian Chief Joyce Msuya urged donors to reverse a downward trend in funding for Syria. She said that while the United Nations reaches about 3.4 million Syrians with aid each month, millions more cannot be helped because the 2025 U.N. appeal for Syria is only 30% funded.