Turkey
Syrian refugees queue up to return from Turkey at a border crossing in the Hatay province on December 15, 2024. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Sunday more than 7,000 Syrian refugees had returned to their homes from Turkey in five days following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
A total of 7,621 Syrian refugees returned to their country from across Turkey in a “voluntary, safe, honorable, and regular” manner since Assad’s downfall, Yerlikaya said on X.
There are over three million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Many are returning to their homeland after the fall of the Assad regime.
"The tyrant Bashar was killing and displacing people, that's why we fled," Mohammed, a Syrian national who was at the border crossing, told Rudaw on Monday, before returning to Syria after years of displacement.
Thousands of Syrian refugees last week took to the streets in Istanbul and Ankara to celebrate the fall of Assad, some thanking Turkish authorities for their warm welcome to the refugees fleeing war.
Ankara has been working to return the Syrian refugees to their homeland over the past few years amid economic challenges; however, it has faced backlash from humanitarian organizations, which have characterized the conditions in Syria as unsafe.
Hakan Fidan, Turkey's foreign minister, said on Monday that Ankara will work for the safe and voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their homeland.
He also said Turkey will help Syria with reconstruction efforts and will engage with all “regional actors” in that regard.
Syria’s civil war dramatically reignited late last month when a coalition of rebels led by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a blistering offensive against the Syrian army, ending over five decades of Baathist rule.
While Turkey has announced it had no role in the offensive that led to the fall of the Assad regime, it said on Sunday that it wanted the new government in Syria to be inclusive, with its future determined by the Syrian people.
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