Millions of Syrians around the world are celebrating the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship and the end of 13 years of civil war.
The war came to a rapid end earlier this month after Syrian rebels swept across Syria and entered the capital Damascus after less than two weeks of fighting.
Now Syrian refugees displaced by years of conflict face difficult decisions. Will he return to his free but devastated home in Syria, or will he remain in the host country?
In many cases, the decision to repatriate will depend on where you currently live. Millions of Syrian refugees live in countries bordering Syria, including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, enduring precarious conditions in crowded and impoverished refugee camps. Others have become internally displaced inside Syria.
It has been adopted by over a million others in European countries, the UK, the US and Canada, and you might want to wait and see what comes next. They want to reconnect with family and friends, but are reluctant to uproot their families, including children who have no memory of life in Syria.
But in some countries, refugees are not willing to make their own decisions or wait for Syria to rebuild. Austria, which is home to about 100,000 Syrian migrants, has already announced plans to deport them. Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the United Kingdom have suspended asylum applications from Syrians, and France is considering similar measures.
But Syria’s future is uncertain. The country’s economy is in shambles, inflation is high, and public infrastructure is destroyed. Basic amenities such as clean water, electricity, and housing are difficult to find. The rebel coalition that overthrew the Assad regime is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militant group linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). Although HTS was designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations, it broke away from al-Qaeda and attempted to establish itself as a legitimate actor in Syria.
Today’s explanation Host Noel King spoke with Amany Qaddour about the plight of Syrian refugees. She leads the humanitarian nongovernmental organization Syria Relief & Development and is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Below are portions of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so give it a listen. Today’s explanation You can get podcasts everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
You are Syrian-American. Do I have the right to do that? Can you tell us about your relationship with Syria?
My heritage is Syrian. My parents are Syrian, but I grew up in the United States my whole life. I grew up in the Midwest.
And where are we reaching you, Amany?
I’m in Gaziantep, Turkey. For those unfamiliar, this is in southeastern Türkiye, one of the cities that was the epicenter of last year’s earthquake.
I would like to know the scale of the movement that has arisen as a result of the more than 10-year civil war in Syria. Some people left the country. Some people immigrated within the country. What are we talking about in terms of numbers and where do people tend to end up?
First, let’s talk about leaks. The country probably has between 6 and 7 million overseas refugees, one of the highest refugee numbers that have followed Syria in the past decade or more. This is one of the highest refugee numbers in the world and is probably now closely linked to Afghanistan and Ukraine. But for quite some time it was Syria. Many of these refugees eventually fled to neighboring countries. And the rest were moved to many places, including Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada. But I would say that most of the refugee hosting countries for Syrians have been neighboring countries, including Turkey, where I currently live. And in terms of internal influx, most of the displaced communities across the various states were in the North West. This is currently one of the largest numbers of people displaced in the world.
Approximately 6 million people are displaced in Korea. And the northwest is home to about 4 million people. These four million came from other parts of the North West as a result of aerial attacks on civil infrastructure, hospitals, clinics, schools and markets. For those who have lived through Syria’s catastrophic inflection point, the chemical weapons attacks and the seizure of various cities. Many of them came from Idlib and Aleppo, essentially moving from place to place depending on where the attacks on civilians took place. The rest came from other provinces, including Damascus, Homs and Hama. Many of these people may have fled because of how dangerous it is to live in another state. Some were fleeing forced conscription, especially young men of military service age. There are actually many reasons. But I would say that the North West in particular hosts the majority of the displaced people.
What did this mean for the Syrians who were forced to flee out of Syria, and for the countries they eventually arrived in?
It’s really diverse. This was a microcosm of many other crises. There has been a lot of truly moving solidarity with the Syrian people over the past 13 years. I think people have been incredibly generous in accepting Syrians in many countries. But there has also been a wave of anti-refugee sentiment, and many countries are now looking internally at their economic situation, workforce and health systems. If we could actually subsidize these health services. their own population. Many of these have changed even after COVID-19. There have been serious economic problems not only in developing countries and vulnerable environments, but also in developed countries such as the United States and many countries in Europe.
So the reaction was mixed. Some were very good, some not so good. What are you hearing from Syrians who have moved out of the country since Bashar al-Assad disappeared? Do they want to go home?
In my opinion, yes. However, there is a caveat. Without getting emotional about this, I think we can feel hope in the scenes of people celebrating true solidarity in almost every country, and we can see the resilience of the Syrian people around the world right now. I think this is a moment in history. This is a moment in time for people. Before we discuss next steps, let Syrians take this moment. Let them celebrate and rejoice. Feel the joy. Feel the pain. Feel the pain. Feel the loss, separation of family, detention and persecution. This is a bittersweet moment for many. And I think it’s really important to let them process all of this.
On the other hand, many Syrians now want to return home, or at least be allowed to enter the country and reunite with parents they have not seen for a decade. Leave the country away from your family for safety or simply due to economic downturn. Many people are very cautious about what they mean when they say they want to come back. Is now really that time? no. Do you have a confirmed schedule? I don’t know either. What I want to say, especially to host countries, is that now is not the time to use the asylum policy. Now is not the time to weaponize this critical moment and immediately start discussing returns. Especially when it is not one of the three pillars of voluntary, safe and dignified for people.
This has been a controversial issue in some European countries. Since Assad was ousted, have any European countries stepped up and said that we now actually plan to do things differently?
So I was dizzy for a few days. I believe Austria did that. I’m cautious to name other countries, but even before this moment, several countries were looking at their immigration policies. Germany has been reviewing its immigration policy. Holland was looking. Denmark is trying to understand what the situation is in Syria. This will allow them to reorganize or readjust their immigration policies and determine whether it is safe to return home and whether Syrians can be repatriated now.
If people choose to go back, what will they go back to? What does Syria look like now?
It’s really difficult. For many people this is just home. It just says, “I will return home.” “Before I was five years old, I had a mom, dad, and siblings, but now I’m going back as a teenager.” So many of our colleagues and teams are going back and reuniting with their families right now. And it’s really touching. I think many people have lost hope. I would say there was a clear disillusionment with the international system. But I worry that the country that people are now returning to, the country, needs to be rebuilt. Development is needed. It has been destroyed. So in certain areas there really isn’t much to go around.
This is not the case in all areas of Syria. Inflation hit the country hard. And it also sits within wider regional instability and the region’s primary inflation rate. Economic insecurity in and around Syria in general therefore adds some of the push-pull factor to some Syrians struggling to afford basic services and basic amenities abroad, especially in neighboring countries. Infrastructure was destroyed. So there is little public infrastructure, schools and job prospects. And throughout the health care system, I’m a public health expert, so this has been an area I’ve been focused on for many years. In certain areas, hospitals and medical infrastructure have almost completely collapsed.
We spoke to 29-year-old Omar Alshogre early in the show. He said his hometown was the most beautiful place in the world. But he’s been in Europe since he was 19 or 20 years old. He spent his entire life there. So this would be a very difficult ask for someone like this young man. I imagine you will continue to hear those types of stories over the coming months and years.
Yes, of course. I think a lot of people are struggling with this right now. This is especially true for many of my colleagues and friends who now have children born in other countries. And herein lies identity. This is where we are told that we are originally from Syria. What it really means is that they are too young to handle it. They may feel they are Jordanian, they may feel Turkish, they may feel British. So now I’m thinking seriously about the identity of not only children who were born abroad and are now in their teens or twenties, but also people who left right after graduating from college or high school. And most of their formative years were now lived outside the country.
Going back at this point is a big decision, especially when you don’t have these amenities or services. There is also a generation that has not received education in the country. Where can you secure your own livelihood and education? Shall we arrive in Syria tomorrow? Absolutely not. It will take some time. If so, uprooting them again is a difficult decision. This is especially true for some people in Jordan and Lebanon, where this is their fourth, fifth or sixth time migrating. They started their lives at different times. So some people want some form of stability. And I think there’s only so much a person can handle.
