EUAA COI Report. Security situation

The purpose of this security situation report is to provide relevant information for the assessment of international protection status determination, including refugee status and subsidiary protection, and in particular for use in updating EUAA’s country guidance development on Syria.

The report covers the period of April 2021 – July 2022, and it is an update of the EUAA COI Report: Syria – Security situation (July 2021). A limited update of sections addressing the justice system in government-held areas and areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, previously covered in the EUAA COI Report: Syria –Actors (December 2019), is also included.

The report is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on presenting an overview of the armed conflicts in Syria, current political developments and information on the main parties to the conflict. It goes on to describe the security trends in different parts of Syria between April 2021 and July 2022, with a focus on the nature of the violence and impact on civilians.

The second part provides a governorate-level description of the security situation. Each governorate chapter includes a map, brief description of the governorate, background conflict dynamics and armed actors present in the area, recent security trends, including information on civilian fatalities, security incidents and trends, armed confrontations (etc.), displacement and return, and civilian infrastructure impacted.

The drafting of this report was finalised on 17 August 2022. Any event taking place after this date is not included in this report.

EUAA would like to acknowledge the following national asylum departments and organisations as co-drafters of this report:

• Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation (ACCORD);

• Germany, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Country Analysis;

• Finland, Finnish Immigration Service, Legal Service and Country Information Unit.

The following departments and organisations have reviewed respective parts of this report

• Austria, Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, Country of Origin Information Department;

• Belgium, Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS), Centre for Documentation and Research (Cedoca);

• The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Country of Origin (COI) unit;

• Slovakia, Migration Office, Department of Documentation and Foreign Cooperation.

This report is produced in line with the EUAA COI Report Methodology (2019) and the EUAA COI Writing and Referencing Guide (2019).