From Family Dispersion to Asylum-Seeking: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon and Syria
From Family Dispersion to Asylum-Seeking: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon and Syria

Author(s): Kamel Doraï
Subject(s): Family and social welfare, Migration Studies, Asylum, Refugees, Migration as Policy-fields
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Family; Asylum; Palestinian; Refugees; Lebanon; Syria;
Summary/Abstract: In 2011, when the Syrian crisis began, many families gradually left Syria to seek asylum in neighboring countries. Palestinian refugees in Syria were gradually been caught up in the conflict and some of them were forced into exile. While most neighboring countries closed their borders very rapidly to this group of refugees, Lebanon adopted a more flexible approach (Doraï & Al Husseini, 2013). More than 50,000 Syrian Palestinians have found asylum in Lebanon. The geography of this exile is singular. Lebanon is one of the countries in the region where the legal status of Palestinians is most precarious. More than half of the Palestinians in Lebanon still live in one of 12 refugee camps, where socio-economic conditions are very difficult. This polarization of Palestinian migration from Syria to these areas may, however, be explained by the historical ties between Palestinian refugees in both countries (Doraï, 2015). Forced migration related to the current conflict in Syria is based on forms of mobility developed since the 1948 exodus (Nakbain Arabic).

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