First Syrians set to return home from Belgium following regime change

Since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Belgium’s asylum services have reported an increased interest among Syrians in returning to their home country. The first voluntary returns are scheduled for Thursday. 

The abrupt end to Bashar al-Assad’s rule in December has sparked a noticeable change. Before then, voluntary returns were extremely rare. In June and November, only one person returned voluntarily each month. Additionally, five Syrians who had received deportation orders left earlier this year.

Nicole de Moor, Belgium’s outgoing state secretary for Asylum and Migration, explained that following Assad’s fall, her office had instructed Fedasil, the agency responsible for asylum services, to explore ways to facilitate voluntary returns. “Since then, Fedasil’s voluntary return office has seen growing interest from Syrians wanting to go back,” she said.

First departures

“The first departures are planned for tomorrow, 16 January. A total of 24 individuals have registered their interest in voluntary return to Syria. Most of them are single men, but the group also includes single women and a family with children,” she said. Individuals with pending asylum applications or recognised refugee status may have returned without notifying the government.

This surge in interest is not mirrored across Europe. According to De Moor, a recent European survey found no similar cases of Syrians filing for voluntary return in France or other countries.

Meanwhile, Belgium’s Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons is still not processing asylum applications from Syrian nationals. The agency lacks sufficient information to assess the security situation in Syria and the risk of persecution for returnees, De Moor said.

^{A bullet-riddled poster of toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo © PHOTO OZAN KOSE / AFP}