Will Syrian Refugees Return Home? A Close-Up

After the stunning military offensive by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that toppled the Assad regime, political stability and the emergence of a democratic state in Syria remain a distant hope.

Indeed, for millions of Syrians on the ground, migration is likely to remain one of the few options available to ensure the safety and well-being of their families.

Migration as a quest for security

Since 2014, I have interviewed numerous Syrians in refugee camps and migrant communities across Europe. Most had not fled the brutality of Assad’s regime or its persecution of political opponents.

They were ordinary Syrians who left due to the war and the physical and financial insecurities it brought to their lives. Their migration was a quest for security — both economic and physical.

For many, it was a desire to live a normal life — even amid ongoing political repression. Their experiences closely mirrored those of Afghan refugees that I have followed over more than two decades.

Lessons from Afghanistan

To see what may be ahead for Syrian refugees abroad, consider the case of Afghanistan. That country has endured an unbroken cycle of violence, instability and refugee movements ever since 1980 — right after the Soviet Union had invaded it in December 1979.

By the time the Soviets withdrew in 1989, over 5.5 million Afghans had sought refuge in Iran and Pakistan.

Sparking hopes for peace and security, but…

The Soviet withdrawal initially sparked hopes for peace and security, leading to the return of 1.5 million refugees to Afghanistan.

However, this optimism was short-lived as a bloody civil war erupted among the Mujahedeen — a coalition of armed groups supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan during the Soviet conflict.

As the civil war gave way to Taliban rule, between 1.5 and 2 million Afghans fled to neighboring Iran and Pakistan again.

Cycles of hope and violence

The Taliban’s defeat by NATO forces in 2001 initially marked another new era of hope for Afghanistan. Many refugees returned home — some voluntarily, others through repatriation programs or forced removals.

However, a new cycle of violence soon emerged. Between the Taliban’s resurgence, the rise of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) in 2015 and the eventual U.S. withdrawal, more than 700,000 Afghans again fled to Iran and Pakistan.

Refugees’ individual stories

Maryam, a 22-year-old from Kabul, left Afghanistan with her husband after losing her unborn child when a car bomb exploded outside their home.

“I lost my baby in my own country. I cannot become pregnant again. I will die without ever knowing the joy of motherhood like women who live in peace,” she told me in a refugee squat in Athens.

At 38, Anwar left his home, car and the steady income from his bicycle shop in Herat in 2016. With his wife and four children, he set out for Iran, fleeing growing insecurity, he told me.

Like Anwar and Maryam, the Afghans I met explained how they fled due to rising insecurity and car bombings in the post-Taliban era — a situation that could soon mirror what Syrians face.

Unlikely return to Syria

The Arab Spring and the early anti-Assad protests in the early 2010s brought many young Syrians to the streets demanding political reform.

But when Assad’s regime cracked down violently, many of these activists fled Syria, fearing persecution. They were the first, albeit small, group of Syrians to become refugees due to the fear of persecution.

Assad’s heavy-handed approach further radicalized the Syrian opposition as some young activists who remained in Syria took up arms against the government.

Turkey’s active involvement

Later, leaving the country for Turkey, they joined officers and soldiers and defectors from Assad’s own army that had formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) under the patronage and funding from Turkey — effectively creating a de facto state-in-exile.

Although significant in the early stages of opposition to Assad, the two groups of refugees were relatively small in number. They were an anomaly within the larger population of refugees who left Syria shortly thereafter.

As the civil war unfolded and continued, the vast majority of more than six million Syrians who left their homes and sought refuge in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan were mere bystanders.

Bystanders caught in the crossfire

These refugees were caught in the crossfire between Assad’s forces and the variety of the armed groups operating in Syria and displaced by the insecurities and destruction caused by the civil war.

These were situational refugees — Syrians who would have stayed, had the security they sought been available, regardless of the brutality of the Assad regime.

Among this group were the well-to-do Syrians and those with family resources paid human smugglers, thousands of euros per head. They reached Europe early on in the civil war, long before 2015, when nearly one million Syrians left Turkey for Germany.

Stuck in Turkey, to Erdogan’s dismay

The 3.5 million Syrians remaining in Turkey have little chance of moving further west to Europe, and little desire to return home.

After enduring the difficulties of the early days of their refugee lives, they built a semblance of stability for their families and made Turkey their new home.

Turkey may not be the ideal place of refuge for many Syrians, but it offers what Syria denied them. They have gone through too much and have invested an important part of their lives in their new homes.

Their children now attend school in Turkey. They have jobs and have built new roots and connections that, for most people, are too valuable to forgo.

Syria remains too unstable and unpredictable

Even without Assad, Syria remains too unstable and unpredictable for the refugees who have paid a heavy price to secure a safe nest for their families away from home.

The probable failure to move to a stable post-Assad Syria only further diminishes the possibility of return, while it will most likely create yet another population of refugees fleeing the insecurity of life in the new Syria.

If any Syrian refugees in Turkey now decide to move and have the means to move, it will likely be the younger refugees, heading further west from Turkey — rather than returning to Syria.

Deportation is not a real solution

Today, as Syrians in Turkey and elsewhere celebrate the downfall of Assad, it would be naive to expect their return to an unstable Syria unless they are forcibly expelled.

The Afghan refugee experience again offers a relevant example. In an attempt to address its Afghan refugee crisis, Iran deported approximately 1.5 million Afghans between 2002 and 2009 — only to see a larger influx in subsequent years.

Today, nearly 45 years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Afghan population in Iran — whether refugees or undocumented migrants — has grown to as high as 4.5 million, many arriving there after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

As the situation in Syria remains unpredictable, the likelihood of a large-scale return of refugees seems increasingly unlikely.

Conclusion

Iran’s repeated attempts to deport Afghan refugees — only to see a new wave of migration — reminds us that refugees, once displaced, are unlikely to return until conditions allow them to feel safe and secure.

For Turkey and other regional and international actors competing for influence in Syria, the focus should now shift toward creating realistic and humane pathways for refugees.

The goal must be to integrate into their host societies, investing in regional stability and ensuring that efforts to rebuild post-Assad Syria prioritize the security and economic well-being of its citizens.

Without these measures, the cycle of displacement and instability will continue — not just for Syrians, but for the region as a whole.