LONDON, Oct 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - An increasing number of refugees are returning to Syria from Jordan, where they face dire poverty because food assistance has been cut, according to a major charity working in the region.
This is despite the extremely dangerous security situation in Syria, where a four-year-old civil war has claimed a quarter of a million lives and forced more than 11 million people to leave their homes.
The number of people returning to Syria from Jordan reached a peak of 340 a day in mid-September, compared with a daily average of 120 in August and 60 in July, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
"It is unclear how many people are returning to Syria to travel onward to Turkey and Europe," said Catherine Osborn, protection adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which estimates there are about 630,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.
"Many people are telling us that they are going back to Syria to sell their property to get the funds they need to make the journey to Europe."
There are also reports of hundreds of Syrians flying to Istanbul each day from Jordan's international airport, the NRC said in a statement.
The main reason refugees are returning to Syria is poverty, the NRC said. More than 200,000 Syrian refugees already living below the poverty line in Jordan were told in August they would no longer receive food assistance, and others have had their support cut in half.
"Many families see no other alternative than to return to a war-ravaged Syria, with the severe security risks that entails, or to embark on a dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. It is not a choice, but a desperate attempt to protect their families," said Petr Kostrohyrz, country director for the NRC in Jordan.
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