Syrians in Europe Resist Calls to Return Home

Growing numbers of politicians in Europe say it is time for more than a million Syrian refugees in the continent to return to their homeland after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Syrians say it is more complicated than that.

Those who fled the 13-year civil war pointed to the political uncertainty after a rebel offensive swept into Damascus over the weekend — and the damage to infrastructure and housing that has made many parts of the country uninhabitable.

“Everyone I know wants to wait and see,” said Omar al-Hajjar, a 54-year-old mason from Aleppo who is one of the roughly 970,000 Syrians now living in Germany. “The situation in Syria is very tough.”

Germany became the EU’s largest host of Syrians after Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the doors to about 1mn asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East. Migration is expected to feature heavily in campaigning ahead of the country’s snap elections in February.

Within hours of the fall of Assad, politicians from the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) were saying it was time for Syrians to start to consider returning home.

Al-Hajjar, who was relocated to Berlin with his wife and five sons by the UN in 2019 after five years of living in Turkey, used to own two properties in his home town. But both were flattened during bombing by Assad’s government and its Russian allies. His extended family has been displaced across Syria and Turkey.

While he is jubilant about the end of the more than 50-year Assad dynasty, he said the country “needs a government, needs institutions” before people can contemplate returning.

Germany on Monday was the first country to announce it was suspending asylum applications from Syrian nationals, a move quickly replicated by the UK, France, Italy and other EU countries.

Austria said it would also organise a “repatriation and deportation programme”. Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats — which supports the rightwing government in parliament — said Syrians “should see this as a good opportunity to go home”.

The tone of the debate was criticised by Pro Asyl, a Frankfurt-based advocacy group, which called on politicians to “take responsibility and show solidarity with the refugees, instead of using them politically”.

Some Syrians are eager to return as soon as possible, including members of the exiled activist community who want to shape the future of the country.

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In Cyprus, a group of 60 Syrians withdrew their asylum claims, citing the “new and hopeful day” for their homeland, said Cypriot deputy minister for migration Nikolas Ioannides.

But other Syrians in Cyprus are reluctant to return. “It’s a grave mistake,” said Thabet Abbarah, president of the Free Syrian Community in Cyprus. {snip}

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In Germany, those with children, in particular, said they could not impose yet more upheaval on them. Many families have been displaced multiple times during 13 years of conflict.

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Only about 160,000 Syrians in Germany have a German passport, leaving the rest vulnerable to a possible revocation of their refugee status in future — although many of them also have pending citizenship applications.

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