Property loss is among the most prominent repercussions of Syria’s 13-year conflict. Women are particularly affected, and face additional challenges to regaining their rights.
After years of violations, HTS aims to adopt a new policy of openness towards Idlib’s minorities, returning some seized properties and encouraging Christians and Druze to return. Still, discrimination persists and the hardline group has not compensated property owners for years of losses.
In Afrin, there is a widespread trade in properties belonging to displaced residents known as “cost houses,” which are sold by Ankara-backed military factions and civilians for “dirt cheap” prices: the cost of repairs.
For former residents of Darayya’s al-Khalij neighborhood southwest of Damascus, hopes of return are fading as fears of property violations mount seven years after the regime retook control. Residents are not allowed to return, but many also find themselves unable to sell.
Abu Khashab camp was established in 2017 on agricultural land lent to local authorities by a prominent family from the area. But the land has since been claimed by another family, who never agreed to turn it into a camp. Three years later, legal deadlock persists, stalling some aid programs.
In northeastern Syria, the lack of an accurate land registry prompted de facto authorities to suspend most ongoing court cases regarding property rights. Two years later, legal paralysis prevails.
In SDF-held northeastern Syria, residents are selling and mortgaging their land and houses as a last resort to finance costly, and potentially deadly, journeys to Europe.
Syria Direct launches its new podcast “Ard Dyar,” which tells the human stories behind Housing, Land and Property (HLP) rights violations in Syria.
Since October 2017, the Assad regime’s Ministry of Justice has subjected issuing power of attorney, especially for real estate disposition, to prior security service approval.
An estimated 25 houses have been illegally seized by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in the “triangle of death” in southern Syria.
