European countries are reconsidering policy toward the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the hope of stemming the tide of migration and getting at least some of the 1.2 million Syrians who have sought refuge in Europe to return to their homeland. Some countries are going a step further and looking to halt asylum applications from Syrians as well as to deport asylees.
“It is necessary to review the European Union strategy for Syria and to work with all actors to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told the Italian Senate the day before the latest E.U. leaders’ summit in October.
The bloc’s leaders have been gingerly discussing the fraught issue of dealing with the entrenched dictator. Some countries have already taken firm steps to block asylum seekers from Syria and to reset relations with Mr. al-Assad.
Over the summer, Italy reappointed an ambassador to Syria and coordinated a letter to the E.U. council by several member states requesting that the community reassess its policy on Syria. The letter pointed out that the E.U. strategy had failed to dislodge Mr. al-Assad and that its economic sanctions had “hit the population at large.”
Meanwhile, the new right-wing Dutch government is working to pass legislation that would tighten requirements for granting asylum and declare parts of Syria safe, allowing Dutch officials to both deny asylum to new applicants and deport Syrians already in the Netherlands.
And last April, Cyprus, in the wake of a notable increase of arrivals from Syria, declared an immigration emergency and suspended asylum applications. The island country and E.U. member has been one of the principal landing points for Syrians crossing the Mediterranean. Syrians remain the largest group of asylum seekers in Europe and the most likely to receive some form of international protection.
Migrant advocates say Syria remains far too chaotic and violent to consider the possible safe return of refugees now. Over the past year, the humanitarian crisis both inside Syria and in the Syrian refugee camps in neighboring the states of Lebanon and Iraq has intensified sharply, with 16.7 million of Syria’s 24 million people “in need of lifesaving assistance,” according to the United Nations, the highest number since the outbreak of war 13 years ago.
Not only is Syria not ready to take back large numbers of returnees, but emigration from the country is only expected to continue. “Ask a group of young people what they want to do in the future and 90 percent will tell you they want to travel,” Vincent de Beaucoudrey, S.J., country director for Jesuit Refugee Service Syria, told America.
He explained the meaning of the word “travel” has fundamentally changed in Syria to indicate “emigrate,” a definition it did not previously have in Arabic. Those who intend to travel somewhere and return have to specify the trip is not one-way.
Though the internal conflict had cooled significantly by 2019, Syria has only fallen deeper into poverty. Everything from food and water to fuel and medicine are constantly in short supply, and prices are exorbitant compared to incomes.
The average Syrian earns $19 a month while it costs $175 to feed a family of five, according to the U.N.’s World Food Program. Over the last six months, Father Beaucoudrey said, inflation at least had stabilized, but now fuel is again becoming scarcer, usually a precursor to more price hikes.
“When I arrived in Syria five years ago, we thought we had seen the worst. There was hope things could get better,” Father Beaucoudrey said. Now that hope is gone.
“During my time in Syria, the families have lost 97 percent of their purchasing power,” he said, citing statistics from the World Food Program. “You have to look very hard to find hope in Syria.”
JRS opened operations in Syria in 2008 to assist refugees then from Iraq but has since turned to serving the millions of Syrians affected by the Syrian civil war. It runs five centers across the country that provide shelter, medical care, education and community-building projects, assisting approximately 44,000 Syrians in 2023.
The United Nations has struggled to raise the billions of dollars it says are needed to address the continuing Syrian refugee crisis, and humanitarian organizations are seeing noticeable signs of donor fatigue on the Syrian crisis. Father Beaucoudrey said the Syrian diaspora plays a significant role in supporting Syrians who remain in their homeland through the money they send back home.
Even relatively small remittances are “the reason there is not mass starvation,” Father Beaucoudrey said.
Syria has been embroiled in civil war since 2011, when government crackdowns on protests that were part of the Arab Spring erupted into full-fledged war. Syria’s President al-Assad was also accused of using chemical weapons against his own people in his effort to regain control of the country.
The European Union cut off diplomatic ties with Syria and imposed wide economic sanctions on the al-Assad regime in 2012. During the chaos, the Islamic State gained control of parts of the country and severely persecuted Christians.
Since 2019, the war has been at a standstill, with government forces—supported by Iran and Russia—controlling 70 percent of Syrian territory, and U.S.- and Turkey-backed opposition forces controlling northern parts of the country. U.S. troops are still on the ground in Syria.
In the conflict, some 12 million Syrians have been displaced—about half remaining in Syria and the other half seeking safety abroad. With half its population driven from their homes because of conflict, Syria remains, in a sorry competition with Sudan, perhaps the largest displaced people crisis in the world, according to the United Nations.
The conflict has intensified again this year in tandem with other conflicts in the region that surged after the terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Since October 2023, the level of air strikes and clashes between opposing armed forces has increased. I think people forget that Syria is a war zone, and that people are dying every day because of military activities and the conflict,” said Tony O’Riordan, S.J., in a statement released in March when he was the JRS Syria country director.
But attacks from al-Assad regime forces are now not the only thing Syrians in combat zones need to fear. In its expanded attacks following the beginning of the conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has begun its own air campaign over Syria.
Despite the renewed conflict, some 38,000 refugees returned to Syria from neighboring Middle East countries in 2023. Now many more Syrian refugees, joined by Lebanese, are on their way back into Syria because of the conflict with Israel. JRS Syria also operates a shelter for those escaping from Lebanon. However, the degree of safety is relative—especially for Christians—reports the Rev. Benedict Keily. He said Syria is not ready to take in large numbers of returnees.
Father Keily, an English priest in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, is the founder of Nasarean, a small charity dedicated to supporting Christians in the Middle East and the Holy Land. He started this ministry in 2014, when Christians trapped under Islamic State rule were dying for their faith in Syria. His charity provides microgrants to finance small, family businesses that allow Christians to remain in their ancient homeland.
Father Kiely joins Syria’s bishops in blaming the nation’s dismal economic situation on the sanctions imposed by Western powers that target not only individuals inside the al-Assad regime but also almost every part of the economy, from oil and natural gas to food. The Syrian bishops have for years urged the lifting of the sanctions. The Most Rev. Georges Abou Khazen, apostolic vicar of Aleppo, called them “a death sentence for the Syrian people.”
“Christians [in Syria] see [sanctions] as a weapon of war,” Father Kiely said, adding that they also feel forgotten by the church in the West.
The E.U. renewed its sanctions regime against Syria for another year last June.
According to Father Kiely, Lebanon, which hosts about a million Syrian refugees, had provided a lifeline to Syria by distributing basic provisions like food and fuel. But Lebanon has fallen into its own deep political and economic crises and now faces a destructive conflict with Israel.
Many Syrians would return voluntarily to their homeland, Father Kiely believes, “but it’s a question of what they are returning to.”
Besides the economic situation, human rights groups warn that returnees to areas controlled by the al-Assad government can face repression and persecution, including forced disappearances and torture.
For the moment, there is little moral alternative to continuing to host and welcome Syrians, Claudia Bonamini, communications director for JRS Europe, told America.
“The E.U. and its member states should in the first place acknowledge that the situation is truly desperate,” Ms. Bonamini said.
She added that many Syrians who took refuge in neighboring countries such as Lebanon often face precarious conditions there, too. JRS Europe continues to advocate for safe, legal pathways of migration and a stronger commitment to the resettlement of refugees from Syria.
Church teaching emphasizes that if conditions in their homeland cannot offer the possibility of safety and a dignified life, people have the right to peacefully rebuild their lives elsewhere. Syrians will likely continue to head to Europe in the hope of a new life whether the continent is willing to welcome them or not.
