With Assad gone, what future for Syrian refugees in Europe?

“It was not a demonstration for Syria. It was a celebration for Syrians. » This is how Ahmad Alsaadi describes the hours following the confirmation of the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime on December 8.

With friends, this young Syrian took to the streets. These demonstrations of joy, featuring the new green, white and black flag with red stars, broke out in several European capitals. Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and Brussels, where Ahmad has lived for nine years.

The first days were joy, tears, memories. Then we started to think. What is the future? says Ahmad. He explains that in the Syrian diaspora, many began to dream of returning to their native country.

There is the Syrian identity in me, except that it was just an image that we kept inside of us. But it wasn’t something physical that you could touch. And now it exists!

Plans are already being discussed. Ahmad’s hairdresser, who has a storefront in Brussels, told him he wanted to reopen his business in Syria. The young man, who today has resident status in Belgium, is waiting to see the direction the country will take before making a decision.

This possibility of a Syria more attractive to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have settled in Europe over the past decade has not gone unnoticed by European governments.

In the days following the capture of Damascus and the flight of Bashar Al-Assad to Moscow, several countries announced that they would freeze the processing of protection requests filed by Syrian nationals.

We don’t want another refugee crisisdeclared for example the Swedish Minister of Migration Johan Forsell, during a meeting with his European counterparts in mid-December.

Many people fled the Assad regime, the Assad regime is no longer hereexplained for her part the Belgian Minister of State responsible for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor. His country has offered protection to around 35,000 Syrian nationals.

This is not something that is specific to the Syrian situation. This is the decision that asylum authorities make when there is a geopolitical event in a country where there is a cause of persecution which is a reason for international protection.explains Sotieta Ngo, general director of CIRÉ, a group of organizations that help refugees and are interested in migration policies.

Ms. Ngo thus recalls that the Belgian government had made a similar decision during the fall of Kabul and the return to power of the Taliban in 2021.

Since the new regime is only in its infancy in Damascus, Belgium has not yet decided on the decision it would take at the end of its current freeze on the processing of asylum applications.

Other European governments have already discussed next steps. Austria thus offers a bonus of 1,000 euros to refugees established on its territory to encourage their voluntary return to Syria. In neighboring Germany, the Minister of the Interior recently announced that she wanted to withdraw protections from refugees who are no longer threatened, with the exception of those who study or work and who do not voluntarily wish to return to their country of origin.

According to Sotieta Ngo of CIRÉ, these policies could have a domino effect on the rest of the European continent.

European states are holding each other by the goatee. They say to themselves: if there is one who takes a measure and the others say to themselves if I do not take the same measure, all the Syrians will come to my houseshe says.

Is it reasonable to send back people of whom no one knows whether their safety and their lives will be able to be protected tomorrow, in two weeks or two or three weeks?

On December 10, the European Commission nevertheless displayed its caution regarding this type of initiative taken by some of its member states. For the moment, we maintain, in agreement with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, that the conditions are not met for safe, voluntary and dignified returns to Syria.declared one of its spokespersons.

The concerns of the Christian minority

In the Christian community, many do not hide their fears about the power that is taking up residence in Damascus.

The Christians of Syria in general, they are afraid, because they got rid of a criminal regime and a dictatorship and now they are under a regime level which is Islamistexplains Abdo, met during the Syriac Catholic Sunday mass, organized in Brussels.

No, no, we don’t think we’ll go backconfirms Hélène, another faithful, who says she fears for the condition of girls and dreads the imposition of the wearing of the veil on women.

Fadi, for his part, is a little more optimistic about the treatment of religious minorities by Ahmed al-Charaa, the country’s new strongman.

Of course, he once belonged to Al-Qaeda, so we have every reason to be concerned recognizes this Christian, forced to leave Syria by the Assad regime because he campaigned for peace.

Let’s give this person, who has a bad past, the benefit of the doubt. Let’s judge him by his actionsnevertheless said Fadi.

Gestures, which will be scrutinized, both by Syrian refugees and by the governments of their host countries.