"I can't return until the regime falls," said dissident Suheed Al-Aqari, 30, who has been staying at an abandoned school where food and shelter are provided by a local charity.
"Two of my cousins returned to Syria, but after five or six days they were captured. We think they are in a prison in Damascus," Al-Aqari said, adding that his wife and children are still in Syria.
Al-Aqari says his political beliefs made him a fugitive from authorities and the feared Shabiha, heavily armed gangs who fight alongside the Syrian Army and scout out dissidents.
More than 3,800 displaced Syrian refugees have registered with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in north Lebanon, which borders Syria's Homs province, a particularly bloody center of the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
Muhammed Kizle, a refugee from Homs who is also sleeping at the school, says he fears being kidnapped by spies working for the Syrian government in Lebanon and being taken back to Syria by force.
"I know there are people who work for the regime (here). We have to prevent ourselves from being captured. If we want to go to the shop, we go in groups and return straight away," he added.
The United Nations says 2,700 people have been killed and thousands more imprisoned since Syrians rose up against Assad six months ago. Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed groups and terrorists, saying 700 soldiers and police have been killed, but refugees told Reuters they only encountered government brutality.
After reports of killings in Homs spread this month there was a sharp hike in the number of refugees and the flow could become a spiraling refugee crisis if numbers continue to increase at present rates.
"The numbers are increasing. In September we've had more than 1,000 enter Lebanon after reports that we received on growing violence in Syria," Alain Ghafari, a field coordinator for UNHCR told Reuters at the field office.
"Most of the Syrians that we are meeting in Lebanon say they will not go back ... and are fleeing violence," he added.
Wadi Khaled is known as a base for smuggling as petrol and certain food items are cheaper in Syria. Residents have told Reuters that unofficial movement across the border was fluid before the crisis.
But since Syrians started fleeing, residents say, the number of Syrian border guards has grown and they are shooting refugees who cross illegally. Syrian soldiers can be seen patrolling the border, which is demarcated only by a small river.
Mustafa Halim, a 41-year-old refugee who now sleeps at the abandoned school with his wife and children, says two Syrian refugees living in a room nearby had their food drugged and were kidnapped in the middle of the night.
"Spies came here and took them," said Halim, pointing to a classroom at the end of a corridor that was converted into a bedroom. It was not possible to independently confirm his account, which was repeated by other refugees.
Halim is a wanted man. Noticeably on edge, he said that he used to work as a lawyer for the Syrian government but defected and joined the protesters.
