Departure of a convoy of Syrian refugees under the auspices of the UNHCR and IOM, on Oct. 2, 2025, at the Karantina area in eastern Beirut. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient-Le Jour)
The seventh convoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) voluntary return program, in coordination with Lebanese authorities, set off Thursday morning from Zahle in the Bekaa heading to Syria via the Masnaa border crossing.
A statement from General Security confirmed that a "large group of Syrian families left the former UNHCR headquarters in Zahle."
In addition to UNHCR, teams from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Lebanese Red Cross were mobilized.
Contacted by our publication, UNHCR spokesperson Lisa Abou Khaled said that about 200 people boarded buses chartered for the occasion, bringing the total number of refugees who have set out through this program, launched in July, to around 1,600 people.
However, they represent a minority among all returns, with the majority based on spontaneous initiatives.
In total, about 114,000 people have registered for the voluntary departure program, which involves removing their files as soon as they arrive in Syria.
These individuals receive a $100 per-person allocation at departure. They may be eligible for additional reintegration assistance of up to $500 per family upon arrival in their region of origin.
According to Social Affairs Minister Hanine Sayed, who was present at the departure site in Zahle, "more than 320,000 Syrian refugees have been able to return home" since the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, 2024, hailing "a significant achievement that had not been reached in recent years."
She noted that adding another 110,000 refugees who have expressed a wish to return through the voluntary return program would bring the total number of Syrian refugees and migrants returning to their country of origin to "about half a million people by the end of the year."
The number of officially registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon stands at 722,173 people, according to the latest UNHCR estimate dated March 31, 2025, but the actual number of Syrians residing in Lebanon before the fall of the Assad regime was estimated at 1.4 million.
The U.N. agency stopped registering new refugees in May 2015, which contributes to the gap between official numbers and estimates.
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