There was a time, back when the calamity that befell their land moved the world to pity and horror, that those forced to flee Syria’s civil war could expect a sympathetic welcome.

Those days are long past. More than 13 years into a grinding, half-forgotten conflict that has killed more than half a million people, Syria’s refugees are more likely to encounter weariness, irritation and outright hostility than sympathy.

Sometimes the hostility explodes into violent hatred. Mobs in half a dozen Turkish cities beat up Syrian refugees and burned down their homes during three days of anti-migrant rioting in July, triggered by allegations that a Syrian man had molested his seven-year-old cousin.

Sympathy has dried up in parts of the European Union, too.

Not only are there more than 1 million Syrian refugees living in the bloc, but Syrians continue to apply for asylum at far greater rates than any other nationality, constituting 14 per cent of the applications made in the first six months of this year, according to EU figures.

Amid a hardening of anti-migration rhetoric, EU leaders met in Brussels last week to consider a call from Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, to normalise relations with Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president.

Such a step, she told the Italian senate, would pave the way for the “safe and sustainable” return of Syrian refugees to their homeland.

Ms Meloni is emerging as the leader of an eight-member faction within the EU that is challenging the body’s “three nos” policy on Syria: no lifting of sanctions, no normalising relations and no reconstruction. In July she also broke with her G7 partners by appointing an Italian ambassador to Damascus, the first time the position has been filled since 2012.