The collapse of the Syrian regime this Sunday marked the end of fifty-three years of fierce dictatorship, shared between Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez. Hope for the approximately five million Syrians who have fled their country and the bloody repression of Damascus. While some already dream of returning home, others have made a life in their host country or have no home waiting for them. However, certain countries, particularly in Europe, are already pushing these exiles to return to a country where no stability is guaranteed.
Europe wants to close its doors (including France)
As soon as Bashar al-Assad was gone, many European countries rushed to analyze the situation from their national point of view. Thus, less than 48 hours later, the German, Austrian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Belgian, British, Swiss, Italian and Dutch governments decided to suspend asylum applications from Syrian nationals. Austria went even further, immediately announcing “a program of repatriation and expulsion to Syria”. Adopting the same logic as its European neighbors, the French Interior Ministry indicated on Monday that it was “working on a suspension of current asylum files from Syria”.
Faced with this rush, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for “patience and vigilance”. Same story for the European Commission which considers that the conditions are not met for safe returns to Syria, reports the independent site Euobserver. The head of French diplomacy, Jean-Noël Barrot, had also stressed that France had “said that the return of refugees could only happen to the extent that they could return to Syria in safety, security not being yet completely assured.”
13 million displaced Syrians and refugees
Several waves of exile have affected the Syrian people. But the most important in the country’s history began in 2011, when the regime began to violently suppress the uprising of the population in line with the Arab Spring. From 2015, Russian bombings on civilians, on-shore abuses by Iranian militias and the installation of an Islamic caliphate in Raqqa, around 13 million people in total have fled their homes, displaced and refugees, over a population of some 25 million, according to UN figures.
Of these 13 million, the organization estimates that 4.8 million have left their country, according to the latest figures from November 2024. Most have settled in the closest countries, such as Turkey which, with nearly three million of refugees, far ahead of Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Europe has also welcomed many Syrians, particularly at the height of the crisis in 2015, with Germany leading the way with around a million Syrian refugees. France has 45,000, according to the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra).
Wait for stability before returning
The question of return for these refugees depends on many parameters. Some have managed to rebuild a career, support their family, send their children to school and will not risk leaving everything now, believes 20 Minutes Adel Bakawan, associate researcher in the Türkiye/Middle East program at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). On the other hand, concerning the Syrians settled in Lebanon [où la situation est plus qu’instable malgré le cessez-le-feu entré en vigueur entre le Hezbollah et Israël]“it is likely that they will return given the deplorable economic and security conditions”, underlines our expert.
As for the Syrians who did not leave their country but changed regions, “it is unlikely that they will return immediately, being still in total uncertainty regarding the course of events. They will only return if they are directly threatened where they reside.”
Return but where and to what?
“To be able to return home, we absolutely need reconstruction, security, stability, therefore a government and a social contract that respect minorities,” says Adel Bakawan. And, for the moment, uncertainty dominates and the Syrians fear the repetition of a Libyan or Yemeni scenario. “There are at least 500 micro and macro groups in Syria who claim their opposition to the regime, and they are all heavily armed,” recalls Adel Bakawan cautiously, who adds that the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which overthrown power, “must send positive messages through actions, and not speeches, to the international community so that it supports the country in its reconstruction”.
All our information on the crisis in Syria
This is without taking into account that many refugees do not even have a roof under which to shelter, while Syria is nothing but an immense field of ruins, gutted by daily bombings for ten years.
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