Over 25,000 Syrians Return Home from Turkey Since al-Assad’s Fall: Minister

Over 25,000 Syrians Return Home from Turkey Since al-Assad’s Fall: Minister

More than 50,000 Syrian refugees returned to the country from Turkey in the month since Bashar al-Assad was ousted of power, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Thursday.

Since HTS ousted Bashar al-Assad, more than 25,000 Syrians from Turkey have come back home, the interior minister said in a statement on Tuesday.

Turkey has nearly three million refugees who escaped the civil war that started in 2011. Their presence has been a problem for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. “More than 25,000 people have returned to Syria in the last 15 days,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency.

Ankara is in close consultation with Syria’s new leaders and is now focused on helping Syrian refugees return home if they want to. Yerlikaya said a migration office will be set up in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo to keep track of the records of returning Syrians.

Turkey has reopened its embassy in Damascus almost a week after al-Assad was removed by forces supported by Ankara, and 12 years after the embassy closed at the start of Syria’s civil war. One person from each family will be allowed to enter and leave three times from January 1 to July 2025, Yerlikaya said, based on rules that will be created following Erdogan’s instructions.

He said that the Syrians who go back to their country can take their belongings and their cars with them.