Ankara – Turkey’s Interior Ministry announced Sunday that nearly half a million Syrian refugees have returned to their country since the fall of the Assad regime last December.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 474,018 Syrians went back from Turkey in the past 10 months. “As in the past, Turkey today also stands by our Syrian brothers in their voluntary return to their homeland,” Yerlikaya said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
The minister added that a total of 1,213,620 Syrians have returned voluntarily since 2016. He stressed that Turkey’s Migration Directorate continues to oversee the process to ensure the returns are conducted “in an organized and dignified manner.”
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported earlier this week that more than 2.5 million Syrians have gone back to their areas of origin since December, including 850,000 who returned from abroad. Another 1.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) have gone back to their towns and villages as the new Syrian government expanded its control.
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Kelly Clements, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, noted during a visit to Damascus that “most returnees have been displaced multiple times over the past 14 years, making their reintegration especially challenging.”
She stressed that returnees’ urgent needs include safe housing, healthcare, education, and access to legal documents; many having lost crucial paperwork during years of war and displacement.
UNHCR is working with partners to help the Syrian government provide documentation, restore health services, and reopen schools. The agency has also launched recovery efforts, repairing homes and offering cash support for vulnerable families across 69 community centres.
However, funding remains a major obstacle, with international contributions covering only 22% of UNHCR’s needs this year.
Clements also highlighted continued instability, citing the displacement of 190,000 people in southern Syria following unrest in Suwayda last July.
