Source: The Conversation – UK – By Charlotte Al-Khalili, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Sussex

When news of Bashar al-Assad’s downfall broke on December 8 2024, 13 years after the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Syrians around the world rejoiced.

We rejoiced along with them, having spent the last decade in conversation with Syrians displaced to the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, where we research humanitarian aid in refugee camps and revolutionaries in exile.

The days and weeks following Assad’s ousting were spent on the phone with the people we have gotten to know since their lives changed drastically in 2011 – hoping that 2025 would be the turning point in a very long and harrowing odyssey. One of us (Charlotte) also travelled to Syria in January 2025 to see what was happening and speak to people trying to navigate the new reality there.

“Syrians everywhere, inside Syria and outside Syria, did not ever imagine we would reach this stage,” said Qasim, 42, speaking from his home in Zaatari camp, the world’s third largest refugee camp, in northern Jordan. “No one ever expected that Assad would fall and leave the country.”

Like the 80,000 others in the desert camp, Qasim has spent the last decade starting his life over again in Jordan. Since fleeing Daraa, in southwest Syria, in 2013, he worked a series of freelance jobs and created a network of clients. He has put food on the table with cash-in-hand work for aid organisations in the camp and offering painting and plastering services outside the camp.

But in Syria, he said, “There’s no home, there’s no work, there’s nothing.”

His family of four grew to 11, and his daughters who left Syria as young children have entered their final years of high school.

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Now, with Assad gone seemingly overnight – and the revolution marking its 14th anniversary in March – the dream of returning home or simply the possibility to end a decade of exile is suddenly within reach. But this dream now comes with existential, practical and legal questions. After a decade in exile, how do you uproot yourself and your family yet again? How do you explain the return to the youngest, who have only known life outside Syria? What kind of life waits on the other side of the border?

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Qasim’s family has outgrown the home he left behind. While life in the camp, with its electricity shortages and economic hardships, is nowhere near perfect, Qasim at least manages to get by.

Returning to Syria also comes at a price – for Qasim’s family of 11, it would cost US$550 just to cross the border – and many Syrians in exile have not been afforded sufficient economic stability to prepare for the costs of return. For many, the return to Syria remains a distant dream they must work to save up for.

Syria’s critical condition

What is left of Syria in Assad’s wake will take years of recovery. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has warned that Syria is not ready to receive returnees. US president Donald Trump imposed a freeze on US-funded foreign aid in January, affecting up to 90% of humanitarian activities in some areas in Syria, according to the UN’s emergency aid coordination office (OCHA). That has created a devastating ripple effect across Syria and neighbouring host countries.

And yet western powers maintain their sanctions against Syria, where 90% of the population is already living below the poverty line and 70% are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

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Meanwhile, the security situation is still precarious in parts of the country. Things in the northwest have improved since the agreement between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus’s provisional government, but March was marked by the killing of over a thousand mainly Alawi civilians in the coastal areas after attacks started from Assad loyalists. Israel has expanded its war against Palestine and Lebanon into parts of Syria, even bombing the capital city, as it looks to take advantage of a power vacuum.

At the start of the new year, 115,000 Syrians had already returned home from Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. In December, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expected 1 million Syrians would return by June, but now predicts only 600,000 to return by September.

Unwelcome guests

Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon are not signatories of the 1951 refugee convention which means they are not obliged to recognise the displaced Syrians in their country as refugees with internationally-protected rights. The governments of these countries recognise displaced Syrians only as “guests”, but that does not necessarily mean they are welcome.

“We were not treated as guests in Turkey, people did not want us there,” Umm Ahmad said. She remembered her life in Gaziantep as one of constant humiliation, where she had to beg for assistance and her son was forced to work shifts of over 12-hours at a time in a clothing factory.

As guests, Syrians face social and legal obstacles in accessing services, education, healthcare, housing and jobs. They are often blamed for waning economies and scarce resources and face xenophobic discrimination as a result. Having to work without protected rights or permissions pushes Syrians like Umm Ahmad’s son to the informal labour market, where they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

There are over 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and their status is uncertain and or illegal because residency documents are hard to obtain and are not consistently delivered in some areas. “Refugee” status is reserved only for European citizens. If Turkey was long considered the most welcoming host country among Syria’s neighbours for its open-border policy and friendly position towards the Syrian opposition, the situation changed dramatically after the EU-Turkey deal led to the border closure in 2016. Syrians in Turkey have increasingly faced deportation since 2019, and there is no clear path to Turkish citizenship.

Around 1.5 million Syrians live in Lebanon where there is a long history of animosity towards them harking back to Assad’s occupation of Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. But only 17% of those Syrians have obtained legal residency.

Umm Ayman, who has lived for ten years in Beirut’s Shatila camp, told us: “I can’t wait to go back to Syria. Our life here has been so hard.” But before she returns she wants “to wait to see how the situation evolves and if it’s safe to go back”.

Umm Ayman never managed to obtain legal status, which means having to home-school her children, who could not be admitted to the Lebanese school system – another reason she wants to go back. But she is still worried about the developing political situation that had taken her, as it did most Syrians, by surprise. Not knowing how the caretaker government would rule, and with no close relatives or home to return to in Syria, Umm Ayman is hesitant to commit to a final decision until she can visit her hometown of Homs to see the situation for herself.

In Jordan, where only about 20% of the 1.3 million Syrian refugees are estimated to live in official camps, refugees have felt the decline in international funding directed towards the Syrian crisis in recent years, even before the January US aid freeze. “Recently there’s been scarce aid in the camp,” Qasim said, “so people are only just managing to take care of themselves.” Now, the refugee-run marketplace in Zaatari has grinded to a halt as camp residents save up for the return. As his current job is coming to an end, Qasim is looking for his next one outside Zaatari, “if there is any”.

Outside the camps, Syrians toughing it out in Jordanian cities have even less access to aid. And while the 2016 Jordan compact allowed Syrian refugees access to formal employment, it failed to live up to its potential due to the high prices of work permits and social security contributions.

Where is home?

On the other side of the border, however, for millions of people home has been flattened to the ground. So many refugees have nowhere to return to and will need time to save up for rebuilding a house that has been bombed, burned or vandalised.

Only those with the “money and the means”, as Qasim put it, will be able to return. He calculates that reconstructing and expanding his home to accommodate 11 family members will cost around US$5,000. “I don’t have the money to go back, where am I supposed to go, am I supposed to sleep on the street?” he said.

Others like Qasim in Zaatari camp spoke about how much money they have already spent on the upkeep of their caravan shelter (often thousands of dollars) suggesting that they might be able to return if they could sell their caravan or even bring it with them to Syria.

Maryam, for example, is a schoolteacher living in Zaatari camp with her husband and four-year-old daughter. She explained that the lack of money was the one thing holding them back from the return: “We paid a lot for our caravan, so if someone could take our house in exchange for money, it would help us to go back right away, in a month or less.” But the UNHCR owns the caravans, even those that camp refugees have bought or replaced over years of wear and tear.

Returning to Syria requires transferring temporary ownership of the caravans back to the UNHCR – losing the years of investments they have made to live comfortably in the harsh desert environment. In Azraq camp, southeast of Zaatari, a woman called Shamsa, who has lived in the camp since 2016, believes that access to basic financial assistance in Syria would facilitate the return:

If the UNHCR helped give money for each individual in the family for things like groceries – like they do now in the camp – people say they will return … But they can’t just return us when there’s nothing for us there.

Many people are assessing the state of their homes and hometowns for themselves before committing to a long-term return.

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For example, Umm Mohammad, a mother of five in her late fifties currently living in Beirut, plans to send her husband and eldest son first. She wants to ensure that conditions are suitable for the return before giving up what they have fought hard to obtain in the last decade in Lebanon. “If they see that we can all join, we will,” she said.

Work and school

At the front of many Syrians’ minds is the question of work and school. Many of our interviewees noted that critical economic conditions in Syria mean that work is hard to come by, especially for entrepreneurs like Qasim who rely on a steady presence of customers.

While the interim Syrian government has attempted to raise the cap on public sector salaries to stimulate the economy, those we spoke to were not optimistic about their prospects. “The economic situation is on the floor,” Shamsa said from Azraq camp.

Umm Ayman has a low-paying job in Beirut, but her husband, formerly a doctor in Syria, is not allowed to work in Lebanon and can only receive a few patients off the books. Adding to their anticipated costs in Syria is the difficulty of integrating into the job market as her husband approaches retirement age. “He will need to open a practice or find one, and we don’t have this kind of money,” she said.

After the Israeli bombing near their home last October, the family moved into a school sheltering other displaced families in Beirut. Umm Ayman feels that going back to Syria – even with the accompanying price tag – might offer a brighter future.

On the other hand, Rasha, a recent divorcee living in Turkey with her two children, is not ready to take the risk. “I cannot go back now,” she said. “My boys need to finish school first.” Her teenage sons, who are enrolled in Turkish schools, have become fluent in Turkish. Going back to Syria would mean adapting to a new curriculum – and having to learn formal Arabic.

Many Syrians around the age of Rasha’s sons who are enrolled in school also prefer to earn their high school diplomas before making the journey back to Syria. Maryam explained to us that this is not always a straightforward decision for her students because it depends on how many years of schooling remain: “The students are feeling a little lost.”

For Syrian students currently studying the first year of tawjihi (the final two years of high school in Jordan, assessed by exams that determine the direction of a student’s career) they must decide whether to stay in the country for one more year to complete their studies, and if this will be possible. For high school and university students alike, it is unclear how their studies will transfer to the Syrian system.

“But most of my students tell me they don’t want to return at all because they honestly don’t remember anything about Syria,” Maryam said. Like Rasha’s teenagers, Maryam’s students were only toddlers at the start of the war and have spent the majority of their life outside their home country. Maryam wishes for her own daughter to grow up in Syria and receive the same education she and her husband did.

But what kind of future would Syria offer them? A young mother of a toddler explained that there are no nurseries in her hometown of Daraa. As the only woman of her generation from her social circle left in the city, she was struggling to find childcare support and discourages her sister from returning with her children. “At least if she goes to Damascus she will find nurseries and good schools, but here there is nothing.”

Crossing into a ‘void’

For those who do wish to go home, returning to Syria involves committing to a one-way ticket – once you cross the border, there is little possibility of coming back. Host countries have introduced rules that ban re-entry for Syrians without legal status and residency permits (the case for most refugees).

“You exit into a void,” Lina, who returned to Damascus from Beirut, explained. “No one can guarantee you’ll be able to come back.” In December, Syrians returning from Lebanon received only an exit stamp as there was still no one working on the Syrian side of the border.

Ghada, a mother in her mid-30s, fled Shatila camp last October after Israeli bombing in southern Beirut intensified, returning to her village near Aleppo while her husband stayed behind to work in Beirut. She said:

My children are so scared of the jet sound … We left Syria so they would not go through the war there and these horrifying sounds, so I did not want them to live here.

Ghada was among the half a million people who fled Israeli bombing in Lebanon to Syria between October and November. Israel shelled all but one crossing point between Lebanon and Syria. In January, incidents between the Lebanese and newly established authorities in Damascus led to the temporary closing of the border, pushing Syrians to look for other routes back.

By then, Ghada was already planning to come back to Lebanon. She said: “We have a home, my husband works, and the kids have a good school in Beirut.” Life in her Syrian village had been difficult, as access to everyday services was severely limited.

But the Israeli war in Lebanon has not ended, as Israel refuses to respect the ceasefire agreement and parts of the country are still occupied.

In Turkey, crossing the border without the required authorisation to return means losing temporary protection status, as was the case with Umm Ahmad once she left Gaziantep for east Aleppo. She won’t be able to see her daughter, who is as a Turkish passport-holder, for the foreseeable future as she is not allowed entry to Syria.

At the moment, Syrians holding Turkish temporary status (kimlik) or residence permits can enter Syria if they apply for a permit. But the border crossing rules are constantly changing.

Syrians returning from Jordan must pay a US$50 fee and sign an agreement consenting to being banned from re-entry to Jordan for five years. But many in Azraq camp are scared they will be forced to return, even after the UNHCR sent an SMS message to camp residents reassuring them that the decision to return to Syria would continue to be “voluntary, safe, and dignified.”

The full SMS translation reads: “Refugees have the right to return to their homeland when they choose to of their own free will. The return will continue to be voluntary, safe, and dignified. The UNHCR works in cooperation with all concerned parties to address obstacles to refugee return in order to end their displacement.”

Fear is not a new emotion in Azraq, where a quarter of the camp’s nearly 40,000 residents lived under security lockdown for as many as six of the last ten years while the Jordanian government processed security clearance for each individual, deciding whether to accept or deport them.

Shamsa noted that, while Azraq camp has become less stringent in recent years, “Everyone is still very afraid of forced returns.” Shamsa, who has spent the past eight years trying to find ways out of Azraq, said that staying there would be “more comfortable than it would be to go back right now”.

A dignified return

In January, the town of Darayya, 90% of which had been destroyed by the Assad regime, was alive with people rebuilding their homes. A man perched on the third floor of a very damaged building was putting concrete blocks together, laundry hung to dry on washing lines, and brand new windows sparkled on seemingly uninhabited homes. Lines of cars and minivans packed with bags and furniture entered from the Jordanian border and winded up Syrian roads – Syrians were returning and ready for a fresh start.

Other cities have also seen their inhabitants return. Mohammad, a revolutionary who lived in exile in Turkey until Aleppo’s liberation on December 2, returned looking to reclaim justice and dignity – the core demands of the 2011 revolution. He said:

I can finally seek justice, I can finally look people in the eye, I am going back home with my head held high.

For those who supported the revolution, going back to a free Syria is an immense political and personal victory.

Internally displaced Syrians living in camps in the northwestern region of Idlib have also begun to return to their homes, bringing their tents to live among the rubble as they rebuild. Iman, a woman in her 50s travelling to her home city of Idlib, said that the tents offered more dignified living than the camps: “You have to imagine that in the camps you have no intimacy, you hear everything your neighbours do and say in their tents.”

But even in the relief of Assad’s absence, fear and mistrust is still rampant among refugees living in camps in Jordan. “People are expecting another downfall,” Qasim said, pointing to the number of coups preceding the Assad regime’s nearly 50-year history. What would happen if, upon returning, they must flee again?

“There is still no hope,” Shamsa said wearily over a WhatsApp voice note from Azraq camp. She repeated the words her mother had told her almost ten years ago in their home in northern Syria, encouraging her to try a new life outside: “There’s nothing for us in Syria.”

Shamsa and her family await a final decision on their resettlement application to the US, which they expect to receive in April, just after the 14th anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution. Assad’s departure has not changed their plans.

Despite the danger and uncertainty, some people are hopeful about the future of Syria and are taking a leap into the unknown to go back home. Umm Ahmad, a woman in her fifties, had been living in the city of Gaziantep, in southern Turkey, since 2012. She was among the first to go back to Syria. A mother of two martyred and three disappeared sons from the suburbs of Aleppo, Umm Ahmad decided to cross just a day after the fall of the regime, ecstatic to be able to reunite with her siblings who had not left Syria and whom she hadn’t seen for 13 years. With excitement in her voice, she told us:

This is our country, there is no reason to leave it again now that we got rid of Bashar al-Assad. Inshallah [God-willing] we are staying here.

Umm Ahmad’s life in Turkey, where she and her son’s family lived without residence permits, had been laced with hardship and financial insecurity. It did not matter to her that she would not be able to re-enter Turkey – she is happy to be home: “We visited our old flat yesterday. It is damaged but we will work on it with my husband and it should be ready to welcome my son and his family next month.” Back in Syria, Umm Ahmad can begin her quest to find her missing sons.

A few others we spoke to rushed to return to Syria in the same way: revolutionaries who had waited at the border for years to be reunited with family who had stayed behind; relatives of the detained and forcibly disappeared trying to find their loved ones; people with nothing to lose being banned from re-entering a host country who had not given them legal status to begin with.

A new blueprint for the return

Although the figures presented by the UNHCR are high – more than half a million expected to return in six months – the number of returnees from neighbouring countries has reached around 235,000 as of February, with 35,000 coming from Turkey and 22,000 from Jordan, while figures from Lebanon remain unclear.

The decision to return will not be a simple one for most, and the return will probably involve more than a single one-way trip. In many cases, young, single men are making this journey alone to test the waters on behalf of their families.

Syrians abroad have been starting over for the past decade, and an entire generation has grown up in displacement. Kept on a hamster wheel of survival and deprived of the opportunity to prosper in exile, Syrian refugees must be able to make their own informed decisions about making the return – or not – in their own time.

The idea of a “safe, voluntary, and dignified” return must account for the complicated logistical reality that repatriation to a country recovering from 50 years of an oppressive regime will not be a one-way journey for most. Rather than halting refugee programs and attempting to send as many Syrians back as quickly as possible, host countries should grant Syrian refugees freedom of movement to and from Syria.

The return to Syria will ultimately only be possible with international support in rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, services and economy to see a peaceful political transition. Returnees will need financial and material assistance as they re-establish themselves, especially in the fallout of the drastic cuts to US-funded humanitarian aid. Western countries must lift their sanctions and hold Israel to account if they are genuinely interested in the long-term sustainability of Syria and the surrounding region.

This moment is not only an opportunity for exiled Syrians to turn the page on displacement, it is also a rare opportunity for the international community to design a new blueprint for refugee returns in an age of criminalised migration. It is also a rare opportunity, then, for a cautious hope.

“As for me, I’m thinking of getting my PhD from Damascus University,” Maryam said. While living in the camp, she earned a master’s degree at Al Al-Bayt University in the nearby city of Mafraq.

Going back to Syria, her husband could return to his job as an IT engineer, and they could rent a flat while rebuilding their home in Daraa. Her daughter could start first grade in the Syrian school system. She is hopeful.

“We’re seriously considering going back. It’s just a matter of time.”

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Charlotte Al-Khalili receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust

Melissa Gatter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Syria after Assad: why many Syrian refugees aren’t returning home – https://theconversation.com/syria-after-assad-why-many-syrian-refugees-arent-returning-home-251654