With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the fate of the millions of Syrian refugees who left the country to escape the civil war is uncertain. Thousands of them are already heading from neighboring countries to the border crossings with the hope of returning home. And hundreds of thousands are instead in Europe and they too could return or be expelled soon.
Several European countries, such as Germany, Austria and Sweden, have already decided to block the examination of asylum applications and requests for family reunification, but it remains to be seen whether the new Syria that will arise from the revolt of the Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (Hts) will be a safe country or not.
Syrian refugees
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that around 12 million people have been displaced, including seven million within Syria itself, and five who have fled to neighboring states. Turkey hosts three million Syrian refugees, another 700 thousand are in Lebanon and 600 thousand in Jordan. Around 1 million Syrian refugees are in the European Union, with the majority residing in Germany, which hosts more than half of the total population in the bloc, followed by countries such as Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands.
What happened in Syria, explained in brief (and why it matters)
Syrians arrived mainly during the 2014 crisis but have continued to arrive since then and remain the largest group of asylum seekers in the EU, accounting for around 15 percent of all applications in 2023, with around 183,000 requests. And what their fate will be will be decided in the coming weeks and months.
“At the moment we are holding the UNHCR line, so there are no conditions for a safe, voluntary and dignified return,” said EU spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Anouar el Anouni, during the press briefing in Brussels. The spokesperson underlined that at the moment “the European Union is not interacting with Hts or its leaders”, who “are on the blacklist of those sanctioned under the Isil Daesh and al Qaeda regime”.
The first blocks in Europe
The situation in Syria and the consequences for Europe of the seizure of power by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham at the EU Foreign Affairs Council next Monday in Brussels. But in the meantime several member countries are already moving independently. The governments of Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Sweden have begun blocking asylum procedures for Syrian citizens.
An official from the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees told Der Spiegel newspaper that “the situation in Syria is unclear, and predicting how it will evolve politically is too difficult”, explaining that this is why “at the moment no it is possible to formulate reliable assessments” on applications for protection. According to initial estimates, the blocking of applications would affect around 47 thousand people.
“It is premature to make assumptions about a possible return of refugees to their country”, said the country’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, according to whom “the situation in Syria is currently very unclear”, and “for this reason specific repatriation options are foreseeable and it would be questionable to make inferences about this in such a volatile situation.” But senior representatives of the CDU/CSU popular party, the party that could emerge victorious in the March elections, referred to possible charter flights for the return to Syria and to cash incentives to encourage Syrian citizens to leave the country.
The situation in Germany and Austria
In total, over 800 thousand people of Syrian citizenship live in Germany, the majority of whom arrived as refugees following former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to allow over one million asylum seekers to enter the nation. And this year, Syria was the top source of asylum seekers in the nation, with 72,420 asylum applications filed as of the end of November.
The Austrian government also ordered to block the processing of asylum applications from Syrians. “I have instructed the Ministry to prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation program to Syria,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner. Yesterday (Sunday 8 December) Chancellor Karl Nehammer wrote in 12,871 applications submitted this year in November.
