Syrians in Europe weigh up returning home one year after al-Assad’s fall

“It’s an amazing period, I’ve never experienced the same freedom, the freedom of speech,” Osama Mufdi beamed, shaking his head in disbelief.

The Syrian entrepreneur spoke to Euronews from his brand-new office in Damascus, a city he was forced to flee just over a decade ago.

Now, he is one of over 1 million Syrians who have returned to the country since the fall of notorious dictator Bashar al-Assad after almost 14 years of brutal war.

Nearly 7 million Syrians have left the country since 2011. While most went to neighbouring countries, over 1 million went to Europe.

Now, with new authorities ruling from Damascus under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, many are weighing whether to return.

The initial return 'a dream'

By late 2024, Syria seemed to have fallen into a stalemate, with a mosaic of militias controlling but al-Assad – the al-Assad dynasty's next-in-line, who assumed power from his father Hafez in 2000 – maintaining a tight fist over the capital and roughly 70% of Syrian territory.

“We had reached a point of disappointment, of giving up on the Syrian regime. We felt that it would never fall, that we had lost forever,” Mufdi said, shaking his head.

He was at that point living in Liverpool and saw no return to his home country.

However, this all seemed to change when forces under an Islamist umbrella organisation called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched an operation that toppled the al-Assad regime on 8 December 2024.

Mufdi was able to book flights back to Syria. He was back in Damascus within days of al-Assad’s fall.

He was not the only one. Kefah Ali Deeb is a Syrian human rights activist, artist and writer who was imprisoned multiple times by the al-Assad regime during the revolution. Like Mufdi, she fled Syria in 2014, ending up in Berlin.

“After al-Assad fell, I booked a ticket and went back immediately. I thought, I can go back, and they won't detain me on the border,” she said.

“I stayed and spent a week in Damascus. For me, it was like a dream.”

Destroyed infrastructure and decimated society

Will Todman, chief of staff at the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, recently returned from Syria.

Todman told Euronews that he met others like Mufdi and Ali Deeb, who had become dual nationals with the means to initially visit when the regime fell.

“They returned to scope out the situation in Syria. I spoke to some who have decided to invest in new businesses and move their families back to Syria. However, most of these maintain the ability to leave if the situation deteriorates,” he explained.

While Mufdi relocated permanently to Syria to open a charity and new business projects, Ali Deeb soon returned to Germany, where she remained.

She told Euronews that she wanted to move back, but “it has become very complicated for me,” with her small child. Her Syrian husband was also reticent about returning.

“He told me to slow down. ‘Let's see how things go. How will the situation be? Everything now is chaotic,’” she recalled.

Much of Syria has been destroyed. Over a third of the country’s hospitals remain out of operation, while millions of children are unable to access education.

Hundreds of thousands of former homes have been reduced to rubble. The World Bank estimates that just repairing physical damage will cost over €90 billion.

Years of international sanctions and internal corruption have also left Syria’s finances in tatters.

Many questions, few answers

Mohamad Harastani helped set up an NGO supporting Syrians returning to the country called Syria Meets Europe. He told Euronews that these factors are stopping many Syrians from making the move.

“For a doctor who is working right now in a hospital in Germany, if he closed everything and went back to Syria, where is he going to work? How much pay will he get? Where will he put his children," he asked.

Todman claims that the feeling is often mutual on both ends. “Many Syrians I spoke to said they do not want many refugees to return yet, as public services are already overburdened and there is insufficient housing.”

It’s not just about money. Ali Deeb was also wary of how free she would be as a woman, and as a writer and activist. The Sunni Jihadist past of many in the new authorities has caused widespread alarm.

While secular, she is originally from the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam which al-Assad also hailed from.

She brings up outbreaks of violence in March of this year in Alawite neighbourhoods of the coastal Latakia province, where she was born.

Alawite groups claim government-affiliated Sunni forces carried out targeted attacks upon them. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 1600 civilians were killed.

Then in July, similar deadly clashes broke out in the southern Suweyda province, where the majority of the population is from the Druze minority, another Shia offshoot. There were 1,200 reported fatalities.

Syrian President al-Sharaa promised to hold anyone who harmed civilians to account in both cases, but was met with scepticism by both Alawite and Druze leaders.

Euronews reached out to the Syrian authorities for comment.

Ali Deeb said that the attacks shocked, but didn’t surprise her. “It is very difficult for a dictator like Bashar Al-Assad, with all the roots he had, to fall without blood.”

Yet, Todman explained to Euronews that these events have affected the demographics of those going back.

“Minorities are nervous about returning, and when the new government took power, there was a large outflow of Alawites to Lebanon,” he said.

'You can't leave the country for someone else to fix'

Many Syrians in Europe are also finding little solace by staying on the continent, as countries harden their stances on migration and refugee status.

The Social Democrat-led government in Copenhagen started offering Syrians up to €27000 to return to Syria earlier this year.

Denmark was also the first in the EU to declare certain parts of the country as ‘safe’ following the fall of al-Assad, prompting an Europe-wide rethink on Syrians’ refugee status.

The British centre-left government also recently changed long-standing refugee policy, allowing it to revoke refugee status once countries are deemed safe.

Germany, which took in over 1 million Syrians during the war, has also hardened its stance.

Earlier this month, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said of Syrians: “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, and therefore we can also begin with repatriations.”

Back in Damascus, Mufdi sounded upbeat and focused on the pull factors of a country he said offered opportunities for those who go back.

With sanctions being lifted and the authorities on an international charm offensive, he said he was working on renovating properties for what he hoped would be an increasing global market.

The entrepreneur trumpeted the authorities' openness to those returning who wanted to set up businesses. “You have direct access to any minister. You knock on the door, and you walk in. You just say what you want to discuss and get what you want from them,” he claimed.

While he said he maintained strong ties with the UK, he was not looking back and encouraged other Syrian refugees to do the same.

“I think everyone must come back when they can. They're missing out on so much, missing out on rebuilding the country. You can't just leave the country for someone else to fix," Mufdi concluded.