Nearly 40,000 Syrians return home from Turkiye since al-Assad's fall

Shafaq News/ Nearly 40,000 Syrians have returned to their homeland from Turkiye since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime on December 8, 2024, Turkish Minister of Trade, Ömer Bolat, announced on Sunday.

Speaking at a press conference, Bolat affirmed that 27,941 Syrians have returned through three border crossings in Hatay province, southeastern Turkiye. "When including those registered at other customs checkpoints, the total number of returning Syrians nears 40,000,” he added.

Bolat further noted that Syrian refugees in Turkiye typically prefer to assess the situation in their original regions before deciding to return.

To facilitate this process, the Turkish Ministry of Interior introduced a new procedure allowing Syrians to visit their home regions temporarily up to three times within six months— a step Bolat believes will "accelerate the return of refugees."

Notably, the number of Syrian refugees abroad reached approximately 7.4 million by 2024. According to the UNHCR, 4,060 Syrian refugees left Jordan to return to Syria in the first seven months of 2024, a 57% increase from 2023. In total, 27,091 refugees returned from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkiye, and Iraq during the same period, up 35% from 20,061 in 2023.

In 2023, 37,552 Syrian refugees returned to Syria, compared to 50,966 in 2022, 35,624 in 2021, 38,235 in 2020, and 94,971 in 2019.