Tensions over the enforced return of refugees to Syria are set to surface at a conference this week as host countries such as Lebanon call for the international community to do more.

With the Syrian war now entering its ninth year, neighbouring countries are facing intense domestic pressure for the refugees to return home. It is estimated that more than 5.6 million Syrians are refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. A further 6.2 million are internally displaced.

Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, said recently: “International aid should be paid to Syrian refugees after they return home to encourage their return.” He said distributing aid to refugees in Lebanon encouraged them to stay and compete with the Lebanese labour force.

Germany, France and the UK have enforced a strong policy that the EU will not provide reconstruction funds until Bashar al-Assad accepts an agreed political settlement. However, the UK-based Overseas Development Institute has challenged the sustainability of this boycott, saying humanitarian groups are “already undertaking work that looks very much like reconstruction”.

Before a three-day EU-hosted conference in Brussels starting on Tuesday, aid agencies say their surveys show two-thirds of refugees want to return to their country, but the treatment of those returning has reduced this number. Only 2% of the 680,000 refugees registered in Jordan have so far returned.

The conference, focused on the demands of civilian society as well as the politics of a settlement with Bashar al-Assad, will hear repeated warnings that the Syrian government’s treatment of returning refugees includes killings, disappearances, intimidation and sometimes compulsory military service.

Some Syrian civil society groups have expressed anger on social media at the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, for encouraging the returns process. The UNHCR insists it helps only with voluntary returns.

The Centre for Civil Society and Democracy in Syria said in a statement: “The pressure exerted on refugees in neighbouring countries to push them to return to Syria, either formally or through intermediaries, is a violation of international humanitarian law as well as to the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees, which outlines the rights of the displaced as well as the legal obligations of states to protect them. A refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.”

In an implicit attack on Russia, the centre claimed: “The relentless pursuit of refugee return as well as the pressure exerted by some parties on refugees is only a cover for obtaining funds for reconstruction by donor countries for the benefit of the Syrian government and its allies.”

Nearly $8bn was pledged at last year’s conference to cover 2018-2020. The EU states pledged 75% of the 2018 target, and in the end exceeded their planned contribution by more than 50%, stumping up $4.7bn instead of the promised $3bn. The US insisted on donating independently.

Estimates of reconstruction costs range from anywhere between $250bn to $400bn.

Filippo Grandi, the UNHCR chief, spent three days in Syria and Lebanon last week, warning at the end that the cooperation of the Lebanese government could not be taken for granted.

Lebanon’s new refugees minister, Saleh Gharib, a member of a political party close to Damascus, has already visited Syria and insisted he will not allow Syrian refugees in Lebanon to integrate.

In a sign of the divisions in the Lebanese coalition government, Saad Hariri, the prime minister, dismissed Gharib’s trip as a personal visit. Gharib is not attending the pledging conference.

Some Arab states, notably the United Arab Emirates, worried that they are being squeezed out of a future Syria and losing influence to Turkey or Iran, have reopened their embassy in Damascus, but they face US resistance to taking the next step of sending ambassadors.

In December Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, made the first visit by an Arab leader to the Syrian capital since 2011. Countries including Lebanon have called for Syria to be readmitted to the Arab League, but the US recommitment of its troops to Syria has slowed the Arab surge towards normalisation of relations with Damascus.