Tens of thousands of Syrians returning to their country of origin. Turkey and Jordan have reported in recent days the departure of numerous refugees who had fled the regime of Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, December 24, Ankara estimated that “more than 25,000 Syrians” had left its borders since the fall of the Syrian dictator on December 8. Two days later, Thursday, December 26, Amman in turn announced the return home of “around 18,000 Syrians” who had taken refuge in the country.
The two countries each host a large contingent of Syrian refugees in the region. Turkey still has around 2.92 million Syrians on its soil, according to local authorities. Jordan, for its part, has some 680,000 Syrian refugees registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), but the authorities claim to have received approximately 1.3 million displaced people since the start of the war in Syria in 2011.
Suspension of asylum requests
After the announcement of the end of the el-Assad dynasty in early December and the flight of the ruling family to Russia, several countries announced that they were suspending asylum requests from Syrian refugees. Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Denmark have notably taken this measure. Although Berlin has also suspended asylum applications from Syrian refugees, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made it clear that his country will continue to welcome some who have been living in the country for a long time. “Those who work here, who are well integrated, remain welcome in Germany. That’s obvious,” he underlined on December 13.
With regard to France, Paris initially indicated that it was “considering” this suspension, before ratifying this decision, as reported by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on December 18. on BFMTV. “Imagine that the executioners of Bashar el-Assad wanted to retreat to France and demand a right of asylum. This is out of the question. The French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) took this decision, as a dozen other European countries, and I think it’s important.”, defended the minister.
UN ‘advises against’ large-scale return of Syrians to their country
Faced with the uncertain political situation that remains in Damascus, the potential return to Syria of hundreds of thousands of refugees worries the UN. “People have the right to return home […] but we advise against large-scale returns,” Amy Pope, who heads the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told AFP in mid-December during a visit to Lebanon. According to her, the infrastructure there “could not support such an influx”. The political situation in the country remains unstable, since the Islamist rebels of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTC) only control part of the Syrian territory.
For certain states, such as Turkey, the fall of Bashar al-Assad is also seen as a political opportunity. Ankara thus hopes for the return to Syria of large groups of refugees in order to attenuate the strong anti-Syrian feeling prevalent among the Turkish population. To facilitate their departure, authorities will allow one member of each refugee family to travel to Syria and return three times during the first half of 2025 with the aim of preparing for their resettlement.