UN says one million Syrians may return in first half of 2025

GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday it expects around one million people to return to Syria in the first half of 2025, following the collapse of president Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Assad fled Syria just over a week ago, as his forces abandoned tanks and other equipment in the face of a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ending five decades of repressive rule by Assad’s family.

The rule was marked by the mass jailing and killing of suspected dissidents, and nearly 14 years of civil war that left more than 500,000 people and forced half of the population to flee their homes.

The ousting of Assad sparked celebrations around Syria and beyond, and has prompted many to begin returning to their war-ravaged country.

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“We have forecasted that we hope to see somewhere in the order of one million Syrians returning between January and June of next year,” Rema Jamous Imseis, the Middle East and North Africa director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, told reporters in Geneva.

She said the recent developments had brought “a tremendous amount of hope… for the largest displacement crisis we have on planet Earth to finally be resolved”.

But she stressed that “we also have to recognise that a change in the regime doesn’t mean that there is an end to the humanitarian crisis already there”.

Pointing to “immense challenges”, she called on countries that have been hosting the millions of Syrian refugees to refrain from hastily sending them back.

“No one should be forcibly returned to Syria and that the right of Syrians to maintain access to asylum must be preserved,” Imseis said.