ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - In the two months since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, 270,000 Syrians have returned home, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “estimates that some 270,000 Syrians have returned to Syria since 8 December 2024,” the agency said on Friday.
A coalition of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, ending Syria’s 13-year civil war that had forced millions of people to flee their homes.
The new authorities in Damascus have called on Syrians outside of the country to return and several European nations have suspended processing of Syrian refugee claims.
The UNHCR estimates that about 27% of Syrian refugees intend to return home in the coming months.
The refugees who have returned include some who were “registered with UNHCR and other Syrians returning from Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt,” the refugee agency stated.
“Since 8 December, over 5,000 Syrians have returned from Iraq to Syria, including almost 400
registered refugees,” it added.
Nearly 25,500 refugees have returned from Jordan.
People continue to be displaced within the country, however.
“More than 650,000 Syrians remain newly internally displaced since the escalation of
hostilities in late November 2024, part of the more than 7.4 million total IDPs [internally displaced persons] in the country,” the UNHCR added.
A military offensive by Turkish-backed Syrian militias has forced thousands of Kurdish families from their homes in the north of the country.
