UN: Over half a million Syrians have returned to homeland
Over half a million Syrians who had been displaced in the Middle East during the civil war have returned home since Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed, The National reported on June 12th.
The Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011 as part of the wider Arab spring, forced millions of Syrians to flee from their homes to seek asylum.
In its Global Trends 2024 report, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, outlined that the majority of Syrians who had returned to their home, did so from neighbouring countries. Over the last 10 years, at least six million Syrians sought refuge in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt.
Ever since the Syrian rebel alliance which was spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham deposed Assad and took control of Damascus, the amount of Syrians willing to return home has surged in comparison to before the end of the war.
The report estimates that 1.5 million displaced Syrians will return to their hometowns by the end of the year. Almost 700,000 will be making the journey to Syria from Turkey, which is currently hosting 3.2 million Syrians, a number higher than any other nation.
The UNCHR once said said that as of 2024, there remains at least 7.4 million internally displaced Syrians and 4.9 million in neighbouring countries. Another 1.3 million have relocated elsewhere, predominantly in Europe.
Roughly 123.2 million people globally have been forcibly uprooted due to political persecution, violence, conflict and human rights violations by the end of last year. This number has been described as “a record high.”
The report stated that “the total of 123.2 million by the end of 2024 marks an increase of seven million people [6 per cent] compared to the end of 2023, and more than double the number from a decade ago.”
However, at the end of April 2025, this figure fell to 122.1 million. Global numbers have dropped slightly apart from in the Middle East and North Africa, where the number of displaced people has increased.
The report outlined that “over one third of the world’s forcibly displaced were from Sudan [14.3 million], Syria [13.5 million], Afghanistan [10.3 million], and Ukraine [8.8 million].”
The National, Maghrebi.org
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