Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya claimed on Sunday that 7,621 Syrian refugees “returned voluntarily” from Turkey between December 9-13.
At least three million Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Yerlikaya claimed last week that the number of Syrians returning home from Turkey surged by 150 percent to 200 percent per day after Islamist rebels reached Damascus and overthrew dictator Bashar Assad on December 8.
“In 2024, we were seeing an average of 11,000 voluntary returns per month. However, since yesterday afternoon, that number has increased significantly, with border crossing numbers rising as well,” he said.
Yerlikaya said last week that border crossing capacity would be increased from 3,000 per day to more than 15,000 per day to handle the expected wave of Syrians returning home.
“We know the addresses of each of them. We will act with an appointment system for returns,” he said.
On Sunday, Yerlikaya said crowds at Turkey’s five existing border crossings into Syria were heavy but manageable, and a sixth crossing would soon be opened to “ease the traffic.”
Turkish officials have been unsubtly hinting that Syrian refugees should return home at the earliest opportunity now that Assad is gone. Turkish sentiment against the huge number of refugees absorbed by their country has been steadily growing as the years of unrest in Syria wore on.
The opposition is even more exasperated with the Syrian presence than President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party. Last week, several mayors belonging to the opposition CHP party offered to buy free one-way bus tickets for Syrians living in their districts.
The BBC last week quoted some Syrian refugees who said the decision to return home was not easy. Most of them said they wanted to return as soon as possible, but life in war-ravaged Syria might still be too difficult and dangerous for their families.
“There is still no water in many regions in Syria, electricity comes at certain times of the day. It is not even clear who will govern the country and how, but we need to return to get Syria back on its feet,” one refugee said.
Refugees and their advocates were also apprehensive about the Islamist rebel coalition that seized power in Damascus. The leading force in that coalition, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is an offshoot of al-Qaeda that has been attempting to rebrand itself as more inclusive and liberal. Few observers are inclined to take its claims of moderation at face value.
“There are still risks in Syria in terms of both security and daily life. An internationally recognised government must take office in Damascus,” Asylum and Migration Research Center chief Metin Corabatir told the BBC.
“It’s not easy to tell how the groups that come to power will behave, and Syrians will naturally expect to see that. What kind of regime will be created there? The team that came says ‘we are not jihadists, we will allow diversity’ – but only time will tell to understand whether this is real or not,” he said.
Corabatir pointed out that it took years for Turkey’s population of Syrian refugees to grow past three million, and it could reasonably take years for them all to return home, even if their security concerns are addressed.
Other migration experts noted that Turkey’s economy has adjusted to incorporate the huge Syrian refugee population – as with most migrant groups around the world, they represent a source of very cheap undocumented labor – so the sudden departure of millions of people could deal a severe blow to the Turkish economy.
Although Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees by far, several European countries are having similar conversations about when their own refugees might return to Syria.
The Austrian government even took a page from Turkey’s CHP mayors by offering Syrians a “return bonus” of $1050 would voluntarily return home. Unlike Turkey’s refugees, Austria’s Syrians cannot simply walk across the border or take a bus back to their home villages, and $1050 might not be enough to cover a one-way plane ticket given the uncertain security situation in Syria at the moment.
Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, and Norway have all joined Austria in suspending asylum applications from Syrians, but so far all have hesitated to deport Syrian refugees, because it might not be safe for them to return home yet.
