By Mike Lanchin and Mona Mahmoud BBC News, Damascus

Ahmed and his family did not feel safe in Baghdad

But when he arrived in the Iraqi capital, the former Baghdad estate agent said he soon found that he had made the wrong decision.

"I thought the situation would be better, that's what the media were saying," Ahmed said back in the family's cramped one-bedroom flat in the run-down Damascus area of Jaramani, home to thousands of Iraqi refugees.

"I thought I'd find work again, and be able to stay. But it was the opposite."

He said that soon after he got to his old Baghdad neighbourhood he found he had to register with the local Shia militias, the same people he believed were behind previous threats to his life.

He also found food was scarce and the area was without electricity.

I can't go back to my original neighbourhood. Perhaps I will try another part of the country, whether it's secure or not Ahmed Iraqi refugee in Syria

After just four days, the family packed up and headed back to Syria for a second time.

Ahmed's 12-year-old son begged his father to let them stay put, but Ahmed said that his mind was made up.

"It wasn't a difficult decision for me to take," he said. "Life is the most important thing."

UN assistance

Back in Damascus, Ahmed said he was still unable to work and the family were again living off the savings they had brought with them, having sold off their car and furniture before leaving Baghdad.

The funds would probably run out in another two months, he said, at which time he would have to make another difficult decision.

These returning refugees hope security in Iraq has improved

"What am I going to do? I can't go back to my original neighbourhood. Perhaps I will try another part of the country, whether it's secure or not."

At one point during the upsurge of sectarian violence in Iraq in 2005-06, almost 30,000 Iraqis crossed into Syria each month.

Although that figure has declined - partly due to visa restrictions imposed by the Syrian government last year - estimates are that around 1.5m Iraqis live in Syria.

Around 140,000 of them are currently receiving regular food parcels from the UN on a two-monthly basis.

UN officials say they expect that number to almost double by the end of the year, as more families run out of the resources they have brought with them.

Short visits

According to a survey of around 1,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria carried out in March for the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, an overwhelming 96% said they were still not planning a permanent return home.

Less than 30% said they knew anyone who was intending to move back.

"The mood is not for a massive return," said Sybella Wilkes, UNHCR's regional public information officer.

An estimated 1.5m Iraqi refugees are in Syria

She said that as the UN was unable to verify the conditions on the ground in many areas of Iraq, it could not recommend to refugees that they begin returning home.

"We can't start suggesting it's safe to return until we can verify that."

There is, however, evidence that many Iraqis living in Syria have been travelling back and forth across the border on short visits - for family funerals, to get pensions and to check on property or to test the waters back home.

Abu Feras, a former member of the ruling Baath party, now in exile in Damascus, told the BBC that he had recently been over into Iraq for family reasons, but had no plans to make a permanent move back.

He said he had stayed for just a few days in order to avoid being recognised.

Another mid-level former party official, now in Syria, Abu Abdullah, who used to work on the Iraqi Olympic committee in the city of Basra, said he had no intention of taking his family back to Iraq for fear of sectarian reprisals.

He dismissed as "lies" the recent reform to the de-Baathification legislation, passed by the Iraqi parliament last year, which lifted some of the restrictions on former Baathists.

He said it was an attempt by the authorities to make Baathists return home in order to eliminate them.