Despite the uncertainty following the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, Switzerland and other European countries announced the suspension of procedures for Syrian asylum seekers on 9 December, until further notice. Austria went so far as to announce that it was preparing a “repatriation and expulsion programme”.
Certainly, the fall of Bashar al-Assad has raised hopes of an end to exile and a return to normal life for millions of Syrians. Yet the realities on the ground are different: according to United Nations figures, the Syrian refugee crisis remains one of the world’s largest with 6.2 million Syrian refugees living outside of Syria, in addition to 7.41 million internally displaced persons, 2 million Syrian refugee children out of school, and 7.5 million children in Syria in need of humanitarian assistance.
It is evident that the regime change in Damascus served as a catalyst in European countries to reactivate the question of the return of Syrian refugees to their country of origin. This question was brought to the spotlight in the February 2025 legislative elections campaign in Germany, strongly focused on the issue of immigration.
This objective of sending refugees and migrants back to their countries of origin is nothing new and can be traced back at least 20 years. This return generally takes place in a coercive manner, with its necessity being justified by arguments of security threats, illegal border crossings, or illegal residences on European territory. Although the objective of returning migrants to their country of origin remains the same, over the past few years, migration management policies have been “innovating”, so to speak, and now combine “enforced” return with “voluntary” return.
The “voluntary” return of Syrians is not only encouraged by European countries, but also by Turkey, which is the main host country for Syrian refugees, numbering around 3 million. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 354,900 refugees have returned to Syria since the fall of the Assad regime. This represents only about 5.5% of the total amount of Syrian refugees. A recent study by the Humanitarian Consulting Group (HCG) and Innovation Consulting and Solutions (ICS), based on surveys of Syrian migrants and refugees, indicates that 58% of refugees express willingness to return if safety, governance, and infrastructure improve; 31% remain undecided, citing uncertainty about security, services, and political stability.
The notion of the “voluntary” return of refugees is a concept that remains largely theoretical: it faces multiple practical obstacles, as illustrated by the case of Syria. Resettling millions of refugees and displaced people while the country’s infrastructure is devastated is simply unachievable in the short or even medium term. Mechanisms for resolving disputes concerning housing, land, and property need to be put in place throughout the Syrian territory. Furthermore, the question of ensuring the protection of minorities remains a major challenge in a fragmented Syria, particularly under the strong geopolitical influence of Turkey, which is notably hostile to the Syrian Kurdish minority in the northeast of the territory.
This article was published in Globe #35, the Graduate Institute Review.
