Vehicles loaded with belongings waiting to cross the Arida border post in northern Lebanon, October 2025. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
“We had no choice left.” In the long line of pickup trucks at the Arida border crossing in Akkar, Abdo Abdallah waits beside a jumble of clothes, furniture, mattresses, appliances and even the wooden frame of a tent. All of it is piled haphazardly on the roof of a vehicle hired to take his wife and four children back to Syria.“Since I lost my job, it has become harder and harder to make ends meet. But it will be the same in Syria. Rent in Homs is as expensive as in Tripoli,” Abdallah says.In his wallet is a $100 bill provided by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to every registered Syrian refugee leaving Lebanon through its voluntary return program.“At 58, how do you expect me to find a job in a country where there aren’t any? We’re heading into the unknown,” Abdallah adds.Since the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, 2024,...
“We had no choice left.” In the long line of pickup trucks at the Arida border crossing in Akkar, Abdo Abdallah waits beside a jumble of clothes, furniture, mattresses, appliances and even the wooden frame of a tent. All of it is piled haphazardly on the roof of a vehicle hired to take his wife and four children back to Syria.“Since I lost my job, it has become harder and harder to make ends meet. But it will be the same in Syria. Rent in Homs is as expensive as in Tripoli,” Abdallah says.In his wallet is a $100 bill provided by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to every registered Syrian refugee leaving Lebanon through its voluntary return program.“At 58, how do you expect me to find a job in a country where there aren’t any? We’re heading into the unknown,” Abdallah adds.Since the fall of the Assad regime...
