How many Syrians have returned home one year since the fall of al-Assad? | Syria’s War News

December 8 marks one yr for the reason that al-Assad dynasty, which lasted 54 years, was faraway from energy by a insurgent offensive.

The 14-year-long conflict led to one of many world’s largest migration crises, with some 6.8 million Syrians, a couple of third of the inhabitants, fleeing the nation on the conflict’s peak in 2021, in search of refuge wherever they may discover it.

Greater than half of those refugees, about 3.74 million, settled in neighbouring Turkiye, whereas 840,000 discovered refuge in Lebanon and 672,000 in Jordan.

The animation under exhibits the variety of Syrian refugees who fled from 2011 to 2025, highlighting the highest 10 international locations that hosted them.

Now, as Syria is coming into a brand new chapter, hundreds of thousands of refugees and members of the diaspora are weighing the choice to return dwelling and rebuild their lives.

‘The sensation of belonging’

Khalid al-Shatta, a 41-year-old administration administration skilled from Damascus, determined to return to Syria after fleeing the nation in September 2012.

Al-Shatta, alongside along with his spouse and one-year-old son, first fled to Jordan by automotive earlier than flying to Turkiye, which grew to become their non permanent dwelling.

Al-Shatta recollects the anticipation surrounding al-Assad’s fall. On the evening it occurred, he mentioned, everybody stayed as much as watch the information.

“The second Syria was liberated, we made our resolution,” he instructed Al Jazeera. “My household and I got here to the conclusion that we’ve to return to Syria, and be a part of its future,” he defined.

Al-Shatta describes returning to Syria for the primary time in 13 years and feeling “like I’ve by no means left Syria earlier than, with one distinction, the sensation of belonging to this nation, to this nation, this land”.

What number of Syrians have returned from overseas?

Al-Shatta and his household are among the many greater than 782,000 Syrians documented by the Worldwide Group for Migration (IOM) who’ve returned to Syria from different international locations over the previous yr.

Of those that have arrived from overseas, 170,000 have returned to Aleppo, 134,000 to Homs and 124,000 to rural Damascus.

Since returning to Damascus, al-Shatta has opened his personal enterprise, centered on energy options. Nevertheless, he says many returnees are struggling to seek out work with appropriate salaries.

“Syria just isn’t low-cost [to live] in contrast with the typical salaries; there are job alternatives, but the salaries are difficult,” he says.

He explains how the standard of life varies vastly for Syria’s inhabitants, which now stands at 26.9 million. “Some households live on $150 to $200 monthly, whereas others stay on $1,500 to $2,000, and a few earn much more,” he explains.

Regardless of the rise in returns, restricted job alternatives and excessive residing prices proceed to undermine long-term resettling. Housing stays unaffordable for a lot of, leaving returnees in broken properties or costly rental items.

In response to the IOM, whereas 69 p.c of Syrians nonetheless personal their property, 19 p.c are renting, 11 p.c are being hosted without spending a dime, and 1 p.c are squatting.

New EU asylum pointers

Within the days following the autumn of al-Assad, a number of European international locations – together with Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and the UK – introduced plans to pause asylum purposes from Syrians.

The freeze utilized to each new purposes and people already in course of, leaving many Syrians in limbo about whether or not they could be accepted, rejected or deported.

As of mid-2025, complete asylum purposes throughout the EU+ – European Union international locations plus Norway and Switzerland – fell by 23 p.c in contrast with the primary half of 2024.

The decline was pushed primarily by a steep drop in Syrian purposes. Syrians lodged about 25,000 purposes within the first half of 2025, a two-thirds lower from a yr earlier.

For the primary time in additional than a decade, Syrians are now not the biggest nationality group in search of asylum in Europe.

On December 3, the EU issued up to date steering for Syrian asylum candidates, saying opponents of al-Assad and navy service evaders “are now not liable to persecution”.

Between 2012 and June 2025, EU+ states granted refugee standing to roughly 705,000 Syrian candidates, in accordance with the European asylum company.

Returning to ‘destroyed and demolished’ properties

Along with the 782,000 Syrians getting back from overseas, the IOM has documented practically 1.8 million internally displaced Syrians returning to their cities over the previous yr.

This brings the whole variety of Syrian refugees and IDPs who’ve returned dwelling over the previous yr to 2.6 million. Of these internally displaced, 471,000 have returned to Aleppo, practically 460,000 to Idlib, and 314,000 to Hama.

Talal Nader al-Abdo, 42, from Maaret al-Numan in southern Idlib, was one of many internally displaced Syrians who returned dwelling from a tent the place he and his household had been residing.

“I used to be one of many victims of [Bashar al-Assad’s] brutality,” al-Abdo instructed Al Jazeera.

His household had been internally displaced a number of instances, first from Maaret al-Numan, then to Ariha, then to Idlib, and eventually to the border camps Kafr Jalis and Harbanoush of northern Syria, the place al-Abdo recollects the tough days they spent within the excessive chilly and intense warmth.

“When the regime fell, I knew that reduction had come, the bombing had ended, and the time was close to for us to return to our properties, although they had been destroyed and demolished. We’d return and rebuild them,” al-Abdo added.

All through the conflict, al-Abdo, collectively along with his spouse, three sons, daughter, and aged mom, stayed in northwestern Syria “as a result of we had nice religion that in the future God would grant us reduction and we might return dwelling”.

Regardless of many returning dwelling, there are nonetheless greater than six million Syrians who stay internally displaced, in accordance with the IOM.

The most important share of these live in rural Damascus (1.99 million), adopted by Aleppo (1.33 million) and Idlib (993,000).