This article is part of the blog series “Who, What, and How Much Does Temporary Protection Protect?” and edited by Ibrahim Soysüren. It builds on presentations from a workshop which had the same title and held on 9 December 2023 in Izmir and jointly organised by the NCCR On the Move, the Institute of Sociology of the University of Neuchâtel, and the Izmir Bar Association.
The article challenges the official narrative of voluntary Syrian return. It provides an analysis of the underlying processes and statistics. It also looks at the returns after the fall of the Baath regime on 6 December 2024 and recalls the ongoing socio-political and economic instability in Syria while underlining the importance of international principles to ensure safe and dignified returns and the need for oversight and monitoring mechanisms to ensure compliance.
Voluntary Returns to Syria: Discourse and Practice
Kemal Vural Tarlan*
The return of Syrian refugees has once again become a regional and even global migration agenda with the fall of the 61-year Ba’ath regime on the morning of 6 December 2024. The regime disappeared in Syria, a country where the conflict and violence that began in 2011 led to migration to neighbouring countries and then to the rest of the world, especially Europe. The new situation [emerged by the collapse of the Ba’ath regime] has become a great hope for politicians, states and especially humanitarian organisations in the field of migration in terms of “voluntary return”. This new process is being promoted by these actors as an opportunity to prove that mass migrations can turn into mass returns if the necessary conditions are met. This is the new agenda for those of us who work in the field of migration. New reports on the subject are published every day. United Nations (UN) agencies are constantly publishing data on returns. Migration and humanitarian organisations are moving from neighbouring countries to Syria, especially Damascus.
So how is the voluntary returns process going? What is in fact the latest situation with regard to the mass returns mentioned?
What do the figures tell us?
Institutions working on the issue, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and other UN agencies, as well as European Union (EU) institutions and countries where Syrian refugees live, such as EU Member States, Syria’s neighbouring countries and refugee host countries such as Egypt and the Gulf States, have been endeavouring for voluntary returns since 2020. Since then, the issue has been on the agenda of civil society and humanitarian organisations working in the field of migration. Since 6 December 2024, many studies have been published on the willingness of refugees to return and on voluntary return.
As of 20 February 2025, UNHCR estimated that around 354,900 Syrians had returned to Syria via neighbouring countries since the beginning of December 2024. As for Turkey, UNHCR last published data on 30 January 2025. In an update shared by the organisation on 6 March 2025, President Erdoğan stated that 133,000 Syrians had voluntarily returned to Syria since the fall of the Assad regime. The media also reported that the number of Syrian refugees who have “voluntarily and honourably returned” has reached 873,000.
Data from the Presidency of Migration Management (PMM) shows that the start of these returns, as indicated by the President of Turkey, was in 2021, when the voluntary return programme was implemented by the PMM. Moreover, 2021 also marks the beginning of a decline in the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey as the number of people decreased from 3,737,369 to 2,810,977. In four years, the number of people has fallen by 926,393.
There is no data on how much of the decrease, especially during the pandemic period, was due to reasons such as loss of life and how much was due to returns. Again, we see that more than 500,000 people disappeared after the earthquake of 6 February 2023. However, there is no clear data on deaths and voluntary returns. Similarly, there is also no clear data on the subsequent migration from Turkey to other countries in relation to these decrease.
Measures that lead refugees to say: We can’t live in this country anymore
2022 was a year in which anti-immigrant sentiment grew visibly, and as the elections approached, populist politicians on both the right and the left realised that anti-immigrant sentiment was a powerful card to use to motivate the masses. Issues such as anti-immigrant sentiment, deportation, border protection and voluntary return were at the centre of the campaign for the general election in May 2023. The election results marked a turning point in Turkish migration policy. Security-oriented migration policies, mobile migration points and operations under the name of Shield were put into practice. The impact of these policies on the ground became visible over the time. In particular, with the introduction of mobile migration points, refugees’ temporary protection data was used to introduce codes about them. The system and practice of cancelling the identity cards of persons under temporary protection were tightened. The practice of denying residence permits to foreigners in districts where the foreign population exceeds 20% of the Turkish citizen population was extended to the whole Turkey and restricted. In neighbourhoods that did not fill their quotas and therefore allowed foreign settlement, the high rental prices led to refugees being pushed into irregularity due to anti-refugee sentiment. Frequent identity and address updates, and the requirement of notarised rental contracts and current electricity and water bills for these updates, pushed refugees out of the system. The cancellation of temporary protection cards has increased the risk of informality and deportation. Even in the case of fines, such as traffic fines, which do not apply to citizens of the Republic of Turkey, regular calls for signatures, the risk of deportation in the case of intercity mobility (except for travel permits), etc., have paved the way for such practices. These practices have also become a means of dividing the local and refugee communities by removing refugees from the centre of the cities and making them invisible in their own ghettos.
These practices created difficulties that led to tensions within the refugee community. The worsening economic crisis has reinforced the feeling that they have no chance of living in Turkey. On the other hand, the discourses of political parties and politicians, the fact that the issue of migration is being put on the agenda through prejudice, discrimination and criminal incidents, and the spread of anti-immigrant racism in society, especially among young people, have led to an increase in social tensions.
Especially in 2024, mobile migration checkpoints were installed at public transport stops, streets, crowded squares, entrances to neighbourhoods, everywhere in the cities, making life unbearable for refugees. This period also marked the beginning of a period of intimidation in which deportations under the pretext of voluntary return became almost commonplace and the number of refugees in deportation centres and temporary accommodation centres increased day by day. Temporary accommodation centres became prisons and the alternative to indefinite detention became “voluntary return to Syria”. The publications on the subject, the increase in the number of cases and the reports of the bar associations’ committees show how widespread this practice has become.
On 30 June 2024, following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor in Kayseri, racist and hate groups attacked the homes and workplaces of Syrians across the city, which continued until 2 July. As a result, the unease in the refugee community reached the point of “we can’t live here anymore”, and it was also a turning point where families who really wanted to return “voluntarily” approached civil society organisations for the first time. The demand for voluntary return led to a period in which the state, believing that coercion and intimidation has accelerated returns, further intensified the measures outlined above. In December 2024, this was roughly the situation for Syrian refugees in terms of returns.
6 December 2024 marked the beginning of a new era in terms of returns and changed the dynamics of refugee returns. In order for voluntary, safe and dignified returns to take place, the state in Syria must first be able to get back on its feet, economic and social stability must be established, and living conditions such as shelter, and employment must be provided. The recent news of sectarian, ethnic and religious divisions and massacres should be seen as an indication of how difficult it will be to rebuild political and social life in the new Syria.
Conclusion: The importance of international principles on repatriation
We are faced with a Syria that is increasingly unstable and insecure, where the economy is not self-sustaining, almost 90% of the population is living below the poverty line, and more than half of the population has been displaced inside or outside the country. Even if there is hope of returning to this country, we are dealing with a phenomenon where the process will take much longer than expected and may not go beyond hope.
Those working in the migration field should be aware of this reality and oppose any violation of international principles for voluntary, safe and dignified return. Furthermore, control and monitoring mechanisms need to be put in place to prevent deportations named as voluntary return. On the other hand, it should be recognised that it is time to reconsider efforts regarding the integration of those who do not want to return, which have been neglected and ignored for 14 years.
*Researcher and photographer Kemal Vural Tarlan is the general coordinator of Kırkayak Kültür in Gaziantep.
** The ideas and opinions expressed in GAR Blog publications are those of the authors; they do not reflect those of the Association for Migration Research.
*** The image created by ChatGPT.
