Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned since Assad regime fell, UN says

Hundreds of thousands more came back earlier in 2024 from Lebanon, fleeing Israel-Hezbollah conflict; Turkey allowing 3 round trips per refugee family to prepare for resettlement

People walk along a market alley in the old city of Damascus, Syria, on January 18, 2025. (OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People walk along a market alley in the old city of Damascus, Syria, on January 18, 2025. (OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

GENEVA, Switzerland — Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in early December, the UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said Saturday ahead of a visit to the region.

Those returns came after a lightning offensive by an Islamist-led coalition of rebels ousted Assad in December, raising hopes of an end to a 13-year civil war that killed over half million dead and sent millions seeking refuge abroad.

Between December 8 — when the regime fell — and January 16, some 195,200 Syrians returned home, according to figures published by Grandi on X.

“Soon I will visit Syria — and its neighboring countries — as UNHCR steps up its support to returnees and receiving communities,” Grandi said.

Some half a million Syrians total returned home last year. Many of those who returned before the regime fell did so from Lebanon, amid fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group there, who have since agreed to a ceasefire.

It was not immediately clear how many of those who went to Syria escaping that conflict may have returned to Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire in November, or whether they may have been counted twice.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi arrives to give a speech at the opening of a UNHCR executive committee at the United Nations offices in Geneva, on October 14, 2024. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)

Footage shared online in the wake of Assad’s fall purported to show thousands in Turkey driving toward the border and into Syria to return to their homes.

Turkey, which shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria, hosts some 2.9 million Syrians who have fled since 2011.

Turkish authorities, who are hoping to see many of those refugees return to ease growing anti-Syrian sentiment among the population, are allowing one member of each refugee family to make three round trips until July 1, 2025, to prepare for their resettlement.

Turkey is also involved in Syria itself, backing armed groups that oppose the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the country’s north.

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