Al-Assad Government Urges Refugees to Return to Syria
VAUSE: With Syria's civil war winding down and President Bashar al Assad now controlling more than 60 percent of the country, his government is ratcheting up calls to millions of refugees to come home. Just last month at the U.N. Syria's foreign minister claimed the country had become more safe and secure. "All conditions are now present for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees to the country," he told the General Assembly, "adding the return of every Syrian refugee is a priority for the Syrian State. Doors are open all Syrians abroad to return voluntarily and safely." According to multiple reports, the Russian military says nearly 270,000 refugees have returned home in recent months. Well, that's just a fraction of an estimated 5.6 million Syrians who fled the country during seven years of violence. there continues to be a slow and steady number making that journey back. But it is a difficult choice. Leave behind the relative safety of a refugee camp where a daily</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are young. We're refugees. We're girls. I know that. But despite all this</s>VAUSE: Joining us now from New York is Samantha Vinograd, CNN national security analyst and foremost top aide to the national security advisor in the Obama administration. Samantha -- you've just returned from the Zaatari camp in Jordan, home to about 80,000 Syrian refugees. This is where you met that girl who we just heard from.</s>SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly. I visited the camp a few days last week and was really struck by how excited these children are to just be children. I've worked with UNICEF for several years now and in the camp and in other camps around Jordan and around the world UNICEF is trying to give these kids, what kids all around the world want. They want to go to school. They want healthcare. They want to play soccer. They want to play with their friends. But the problem is and what is most impactful for me coming out of the trip is these children are being children but their parents are watching them play every day knowing that their future is so uncertain, if they stay in the refugee camps and if they stay in Jordan. And several such parents said to me that they're considering returning to Syria fully knowing the risk, solely so that they can give their children some kind of hope for a future that involves working and going to university and having a more normal adulthood. Despite the security risk so many families are thinking of going back.</s>VAUSE: This has to be such an incredibly difficult choice for a parent to make. You know, you go back they don't have a lot of faith in Bashar al Assad but then what they've been telling you is that they actually, you know, have some -- some sort of belief that maybe Russian and Vladimir Putin can guarantee their safety.</s>VINOGRAD: I think that there is a firm recognition that Vladimir Putin is encouraging Assad to do many things. There was a delivery, thank God, of humanitarian assistance to a horrific area known as the berm between Jordan and Syria. It is a no-man's-land where thousands of Syrian refugees are living with no food, no water, no clothes and brutal conditions. UNICEF tries to get there but it's having difficulties. But Putin helped broker agreements for goods to go from Damascus to the berm with Assad. And so the refugees are hearing these kind of stories and thinking, well, if Putin is really calling the shots here and he's saying that it is safe for us to go back. If we have his security guarantee, maybe it is ok for us to go back and risk our children's safety.</s>VAUSE: Just clinging to any hope, I guess. You know, these camps, a school (ph) in Jordan and the U.N. have been struggling with this financial burden for years and it seems the conditions are only going to go from bad to worse. That's usually a really big factor here for many of these families when they make this decision.</s>VINOGRAD: Exactly. In the camp I was in one of the four refugee camps in Jordan but only about 90 percent of Syrian refugees live in the camp. They're also spread throughout the country. And there was a lot of funding from Gulf countries, for example, at the beginning. I visited a school funded by the Bahrainis, passed by another one that was initially funded by the Saudis. But that initial funding to build the schools have gone away. And when you look at organizations like UNICEF or other partners, they're now engaged in programs to just keep these kids in school, healthy and fed. And that's going to require a lot more money. And that money is not going to come from the government of Jordan. That has to come from private donors and from countries in a time when the U.S. government for example is trying to cut its development assistance and not ramp it up.</s>VAUSE: How do the kids feel about possibly heading back to a country that either they've never known or the only memories they have, you know, are violence and war?</s>VINOGRAD: Well, so many of them were actually born in the camps. The camps that I was in -- that I was in there are 80 births every week. There's a very high fertility rate in the camps. So based upon how long the war has been going on, most of the children that I interacted with have no memory of Syria. The older children are really engrossed in life in the camps and going to school and therapy and all those other activities. So they're really just trying to focus on their day-to-day. It's really the parents that are grappling with these decisions, knowing the risks on either side. And I think acting like parents do can anywhere around the world trying to let their kids be kids while they make decisions that will impact their children's future.</s>VAUSE: You know, there's also just the simple practicalities of actually leaving Jordan, trying to get out of that country. Some have passports. Many don't. Some fled without any documentation. So just trying to leave Jordan and head back into Syria, that in itself is not exactly easy.</s>VINOGRAD: It is not easy. And from what I was told, if they make the decision to leave Jordan, to cross back into Syria, I don't think that the Jordanian government will take them back. So it's literally all or nothing. If they decide to go, they are giving away their chances of coming back into a refugee camp, of crossing that the border again and really placing all of their eggs in one basket. And that basket is Assad and Vladimir Putin which as we discussed is incredibly insecure. And we should also note, the rate of resettlement out of Jordan has basically dried up. So the choices really are quite binary. Stay in Jordan and know that your children are going to face a very uncertain future and may spend their entire lives in the camps like Palestinian children are facing, you know, 40 years after their relatives first got there or risk going back into Syria for the rest of their lives and facing the violence there that may not end any time soon.</s>VAUSE: Wow. Yes. And again, you know, this is a country where half the population are displaced either internally or they fled to another country. And this civil war, I should say, the violence continues even though it is winding down. Samantha -- thank you. Appreciate it.</s>VINOGRAD: Thank you.</s>VAUSE: Police in Kenya are searching for a 23-year-old Italian aid worker abducted by a gang at gun point. It happened in the coastal city of Kalisi (ph). Police say as the gunmen made off with their hostage, they fired at bystanders and several were left wounded. Well, at least 50 people have been killed, another 82 wounded in a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital. The target was a large wedding hall in Kabul being used to host a meeting of religious scholars celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. So far no claims of responsibility. According to the U.N., the first half of 2018 has seen a surge in the number of civilians that have been killed -- almost 1,700 have died, the highest number over any six-month period in the last ten years. Well, they're meant to be a safe, reassuring presence on domestic flights in the U.S. but maybe, maybe someone should take the guns away from the air marshals just for their own protection. Details next.