After 14 years of civil war, the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—long considered a distant dream—became the reality in a little more than a week in December as armed opposition groups launched a rapid offensive against the regime. In Damascus, Stockholm, Istanbul, Berlin, and elsewhere, demonstrators jubilantly marked the end of the Assad family’s brutal rule.
For the more than 6.2 million Syrian refugees around the world, this moment comes with an added layer of complexity: the decision of whether—and when—to return home.
Despite the profound uncertainty surrounding Syria’s future, many governments in Europe and the Middle East appear to be forging ahead with plans to send refugees back. Barely a day after Assad’s ouster, multiple European governments announced their decision to suspend asylum processing for Syrians, with many citing the need to reassess Syria’s political and security situation.
Though limited pauses are reasonable to ensure that asylum decisions account for new geopolitical developments, some European governments have made clear that they ultimately seek to repatriate Syrian refugees. Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said Austria would prepare an “orderly return and deportation program to Syria”; the government has already announced financial incentives for Syrian refugees to leave the country. In Germany, which holds elections next month, Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, noted that Syrians celebrating the fall of the Assad government “should return to Syria immediately.”
In the Middle East, some politicians have sought to capitalize on Assad’s fall to push for the large-scale return of Syrians, building on years of public pressure and dwindling international support. In recent months, hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled Lebanon as a result of intensified Israeli shelling, and Lebanese authorities quickly moved to make reentry into Lebanon more restrictive. Within days of Assad’s ouster, municipalities in Turkey offered Syrians one-way tickets to facilitate their return.
Premature returns come with profound risks for refugees. In the case of Syria, these range from basic concerns about their livelihoods—such as the lack of housing and infrastructure—to more complex issues such as social tensions that may emerge due to still unsettled absentee property laws and ongoing violence. Rushing to send back millions of refugees amid such deep uncertainty is counterproductive to the goal of safe, voluntary, and sustainable refugee return, as well as to Syria’s long-term stability.
If states want to help Syrians return safely—and ensure that the new Syrian state is stable into the future—they should guarantee that refugees’ decisions are both voluntary and reversible.
Right now, there is a profound sense of hope among Syrians who want to rebuild their country, and many will seek to return home permanently. But it is too soon to assess the scale or durability of such returns. Overstating the magnitude or popularity of refugee returns in a situation fraught with security, political, and humanitarian precarity risks fueling policies in host countries that push refugees into danger.
In the days following Assad’s fall, some observers read the images of traffic along roads to Damascus and Aleppo as evidence that many Syrians in neighboring countries were rushing home. However, it quickly became clear that much of this traffic came from people who had been displaced within Syria. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more than 660,000 Syrians have been newly internally displaced since early December 2024.
UNHCR estimated on Jan. 2 that since Assad’s ouster, approximately 115,000 Syrians had entered the country through official border crossings. That is a significant increase over previous years but still only a fraction of the total number of Syrian refugees in the world. What’s more, at least some of those entering Syria are visiting family members or those checking on their former homes after years of separation; they may not intend to return for good.
For instance, of the 22,000 Syrians who entered Syria through Jordan from Dec. 8 to Dec. 25, 2024, only a little more than 3,000 were registered refugees. The majority were either transiting from third countries or held other legal status that enables them to return to Jordan; registered Syrian refugees are currently not allowed to return to Jordan if they leave. According to a UNHCR feedback survey of Syrians conducted after Dec. 8, 2024, the vast majority of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries are adopting a “wait and see” approach to return.
In fact, some people who had remained in Syria until now may be compelled to leave the country, whether out of fear of new violence or uncertainty of what is to come. Tens of thousands of Syrians have fled in the last weeks, even as neighboring countries have tightened or maintained restrictive entry requirements. Reports of targeted attacks against symbols of religious minority groups have stoked fears of sectarian escalation, even as Syria’s new government attempts to abate concerns. Additionally, ongoing fighting among nonstate armed groups across northern Syria as well as the Israeli shelling and expanded occupation of parts of southwestern Syria have created new reasons for displacement.
Even if Syria’s political and security situation stabilizes, the level of destruction and humanitarian need has left many Syrians hesitant to return. Ninety percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, and the state’s services are hollowed out after years of war. As winter intensifies, millions of Syrians inside the country do not have warm shelters, and displaced refugees certainly won’t have warm shelter to return to.
In a recent assessment in Lebanon by the International Rescue Committee, where one of us works, the vast majority of refugees interviewed did not have access to a livable dwelling inside Syria. As Amy Pope, the International Organization for Migration’s director-general, recently noted, premature large-scale returns “could overwhelm already fragile infrastructure, potentially forcing families to move again.”
Many refugees fear that they could lose protections in their host countries if they return to Syria. UNHCR has said that it does not consider the situation in Syria to meet the requirements for cessation of Syrians’ refugee status; refugees should not have their status revoked on the basis of a change in government alone. Though international law is clear that refugees need to be “voluntarily re-established” for refugee status to be revoked—meaning that they make a durable return rather than visiting temporarily—this provision has not always been honored in practice. States such as Lebanon and Denmark have revoked or refused refugee status for Syrians who made visits home.
Refugees’ fears are amplified by the fact that many host governments have moved to restrict Syrians’ access to asylum and accelerate return since before Assad’s fall. In Lebanon and Turkey, Syrians have endured years of intensifying discrimination and deportations. In Europe, the rise of anti-immigrant parties has created an increasingly hostile political environment. Some politicians see this moment as an opportunity to escalate agendas to deport refugees—regardless of security conditions within Syria.
For example, the Danish government has argued since 2019 that Damascus is safe for refugee returns—a fiction laid bare in recent weeks by horrifying reports from prisons in the capital, where the body of a Syrian activist who returned to the country in 2020 was found alongside evidence of decades of detention, torture, and killing.
Refugees must be given the time and information to make decisions about returning on their own. While there are many reasons to have hope for Syria’s future, the security situation on the ground will not change overnight. Involuntarily deporting refugees or prematurely revoking their refugee status undermines the sustainability of refugees’ returns. Research shows that forced returns and a lack of reintegration support can lead returnees to be further displaced and marginalized. Rushing to send refugees back may placate anti-immigrant voices, but it would violate refugees’ rights and could create further instability in their home countries and neighboring regions.
Host states must instead reaffirm the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. Governments must also uphold international law that prohibits group-based denials of refugee status and recognize that many Syrians still face threats after Assad’s ouster. Even amid efforts at reconciliation within Syria, the legacy of violence and trauma will be a barrier to many people’s return.
Governments should also explicitly affirm continued protections for refugees who wish to visit Syria before deciding whether to return permanently. Such an approach could ultimately facilitate durable returns by enabling Syrians to be fully informed about the risks and local situation in their areas of origin without fearing that they might lose their refugee status. In one promising step, Turkey announced a mechanism for Syrians to take temporary trips home in the first half of 2025, allowing them to visit multiple times before deciding whether or not to return.
Finally, host governments should recognize that many Syrians have become integral parts of their new societies. More than 300,000 Syrian refugees are now citizens of European Union countries, and many others hold long-term residency status. With deepening labor crises facing European governments’ aging workforces, it is not necessarily prudent for them to rush to send refugees back. Syrians have also become crucial parts of the workforce in countries neighboring Syria.
Syrian refugees will be central to rebuilding their country, whether by returning or providing political and economic support from the diaspora. These efforts are already underway, and international support for Syrian-led initiatives will be crucial. Yet as Syrians consider their own futures, the least that host governments can do is give them time to make difficult choices themselves.