Rabat – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi announced on Saturday that nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned to their homeland since Bachar Al-Assad’s ousting on December 8, 2024.
Grandi published figures of Syrian refugees who rejoined their country on X ahead of his visit to the war-torn country.
“Soon I will visit Syria — and its neighboring countries,” as part of UNHCR’s efforts to help “returnees and receiving communities,” he wrote.
Grandi’s figures revealed that some 195,200 Syrians have returned home between December 8 and January 16.
Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah last year pushed hundreds of thousands of Syrians to return home to flee Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Syrian refugees have also been returning home since the rebel coalition led by the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8, 2025.
The civil war in Syria has displaced some 13 million, and their fate remains unclear following Assad’s ousting.
Several European countries have tightened restrictions on processing Syrian asylum claims, and some governments have called for those already granted asylum to be deported or given incentives to leave.
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Since declaring Syria free from Assad’s regime, the interim government has been working on restoring the country that the over a decade-long civil war devastated.
Syrians around the world received the toppling of Assad with great joy, and the news was welcomed by several countries around the world.
As the Syrian interim government is charting a path to restoring stability in the country, officials are investing efforts to garner more support.
However, the world is cautiously optimistic about how developments will unfold in the country, with observers raising concerns following the interim government revealing controversial amendments to the school curricula, reflecting some fundamentalist influence.
Despite these concerns, the HTS-led authorities in Syria thwarted an ISIS-affiliated attempt to attack the revered Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, in Damascus — a move that would earn the interim government some credibility.
