Return or stay? The dilemma facing Syrians living in Europe

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Ahmad Alhamada welcomed Euronews in his flat in Ghent, Belgium. Upon our arrival, we were presented with a steaming pot of tea, sliced watermelon and cashew nuts, all laid out on a coffee table in his apartment's living room.

Originally from Idlib in northwestern Syria, Ahmad fled the country in 2012 following the crackdown on anti-regime protests, during the reign of the country's strongman President Bashar al-Assad.

The dramatic fall of al-Assad on 8 December 2024 at the hands of a surprise rebellion led by Ahmed al-Sharaa's militant group - Hayat Tahrir al Sham - has brought considerations, once perceived as distant dreams to the forefront of reality.

The 30-year-old, who fled his country aged just 18 unaware his displacement was to last more than a decade, now plans to return to Syria in the near future to help with the rebuilding of his country.

Others have already embarked on similar journeys. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 720,000 Syrians were repatriated between 8 December 2024 and 24 July 2025.

Of these, 40% returned from Lebanon, 37% from Turkey, 15% from Jordan and 5% were from Iraq. The willingness to return is considerably lower for those in Europe, however.

81% of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers living in the continent, who were surveyed by the UNHCR in May, declared that they had no intention of returning to Syria within the next 12 months.

159 Syrians have returned to their country voluntarily from Belgium since 1 January 2025, according to the Belgian Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (Fedasil).

The agency manages voluntary return programmes from Belgium to the countries of origin for all migrants, whether asylum seekers, rejected asylum seekers or those without a valid residence permit.

These programmes include transport costs and travel assistance. For some migrants, they may also include a departure grant and support for re-integration in their country of origin, which can be used to launch a small business, assist with rent payments and home renovations or cover medical expenses.

And while these re-integration projects do not yet exist for Syrians, Fedasil is currently working on making these grants available to Syrians looking to reunite with their homeland, now free after 14 years of brutal civil war.

Rebuilding the country

Ahmad plans to return to Syria in two or three years' time to help rebuild his country, if the situation permits.

"There are a lot of things to be done. The country has many needs. I have a good life here, but I think the country really needs support," he says.

In his view, the priority is to disarm the militias and unite the country. Once these conditions have been met, Ahmad believes most Syrians will be "able to return" and place their beloved homeland back on the world map.

Although his project has not yet materialised, he would like to promote democracy in Syria through his association, the Democratic Centre for Human Rights (DCHR). He adds that Syrians living in Europe also have an intermediary role to play in the reconstruction of their country: "We can help European companies to find opportunities in Syria. And we can also help the Syrian government to attract companies to invest there," he asserts.

Ahmad was studying to become an engineer at Damascus University when the anti-regime protests began in 2011. He co-founded a liberal student movement and took part in demonstrations against al-Assad, whom he does not hesitate to slam as a "dictator".

"The country was like a prison, you couldn't speak, you couldn't have an opinion and if you did, you were killed," he explained.

Expelled from university, he was arrested and then imprisoned for three months in the notorious Sednayah prison, north of the capital Damascus, where he was subjected to mock executions and torture using electric shocks.

He was later acquitted by a court and released with the sole purpose being "to make room for other prisoners," according to him.

With his newly found freedom, Ahmed elected to flee Syria with his parents and siblings and opted to settle in Lebanon, to remain in close geographic proximity to his country.

Lebanon was home to Ahmad and his family for three years, where he opened a small shop under a Lebanese name and took part in an initiative to open schools for Syrian children.

Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. The Lebanese government estimates that around 1.4 million Syrians are displaced in Lebanon, over 700,000 of whom are registered as refugees by theUNHCR.

Faced with the sharply deteriorating living conditions, exacerbated by a dire economic crisis which Beirut has grappled with for years, as well as threats from Hezbollah, Ahmad decided to depart Lebanon.

"Lebanon had become more dangerous for Syrians, who were anti-Assad, anti-Iran and anti-Hezbollah in the region. So we were also a target for Hezbollah, and so was my family," says Ahmad.

He boarded a boat in Turkey, crossed the Mediterranean to Greece and then reached Germany, passing via North Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria.

The taxi driver who took him and his two friends across the border between Serbia and Hungary threatened them with a knife in a forest in an attempt to extort €2,000 from them, he claimed.

After a two-week journey, he finally reached Belgium, arriving at Brussels North Station in 2016.

Ahmad now works in the IT department of a public administration office and has dual Belgian and Syrian citizenship. He also founded a small association, the Democratic Centre for Human Rights (DCHR), and was elected president of an association representing the Syrian community in Belgium.

When he woke up on 8 December 2024, a half-asleep Ahmad discovered while looking at his phone that Bashar al-Assad had fled during the previous night.

"It was a great day", he recalls. He celebrated all day in the streets of Brussels with the Syrian community and three days later boarded a plane for Amman, the Jordanian capital.

From there he took a taxi to the Syrian border, which he crossed on foot. The photos of the al-Assad family, usually displayed at the Syrian border, had disappeared.

"There was only the Syrian flag, which is more than enough," a proud Ahmad says.

The border post is now manned by soldiers from the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of decentralised Syrian rebel groups, now working to maintain law and order in the country. He recalls collapsing into their arms and crying alongside them: "it was a very moving moment", he said.

Overwhelmed with emotion and unsure what to do or where to go in his first reunion with his homeland after 13 years, Ahmad chose to make his first stop at his university in Damascus.

"I was expelled and now I'm back and Bashar al-Assad is gone. So for me, it's a kind of justice and karma", he rejoiced.

His reunion tour was also marked with notable stops in Homs, Hama, Aleppo and his hometown of Idlib.

"I had to embrace each town and walk the streets, talking to the people," he says.

Though his return was joyful, Ahmad says it was also a brazen reminder of the misery that still lurks following years of oppression and atrocities.

He says many of the towns he visited were left in ruins, women were looking for their loved ones with photos in their hands. He joined members of his family in Idlib, where he discovered that his house, much like the rest of the city, was destroyed. He now plans to rebuild it.

Staying in Europe

27-year-old Aisha Abbas has been living in the Belgian city of Antwerp since 2017. She is originally from Darkoush, a small town near Idlib on the Turkish-Syrian border.

She found herself in disbelief upon hearing the news of the toppling of Assad, "I couldn't believe it. It felt like a dream", recalls Aisha, who shared that she didn't sleep for two days after hearing the news.

She regrets that her father, who "lived his whole life for this moment", passed away before getting the chance to see it. Her first thought is that she will finally be able to see the country where she was born.

"I want to see the streets, I want to see people's faces, I want to see how they live," she said.

Aisha has however ruled out any permanent return to her country, primarily due to the persistent insecurity.

"How do you expect a place that's been at war for 14 years to be safe for people, it's a battlefield", she declared. "The fall of the government isn't going to fix everything like a magic wand".

For a start, she doesn't even know where to go.

"I don't have a house. I don't know if I'll be able to work or have a life. I wouldn't have any friends. Half my family is dead. I'm even scared at the thought of visiting Syria and seeing the place, but there's no one left," she explained.

Starting all over again for the third time after having already lost everything is also discouraging her from returning. She is determined to make a life for herself in Belgium, whether it be somewhere "quite international" like Antwerp, or somewhere "very quiet" like Ghent.

In 2011, Aisha's father took part in protests against the Assad regime, which were violently repressed by the fallen president's forces and loyalists.

"We weren't safe because he was an important person in the revolution", explains Aisha. In June of that year, 13-year-old Aisha, her three younger brothers and her mother fled Syria and took refuge with her aunt on the other bank of the Orontes River, in Turkey's Antioch.

"I didn't even pack a bag", she recalled, "I thought I'd be back in September for the start of the school year". In the end, she resumed classes at a "school" opened by the Syrian community in a flat.

"I was really depressed for a year, until I realised that we had a life here and that we had to work and build a new community to make new friends", said Aisha.

Her mother opened a small workshop where the women could make and sell their designs, such as dresses, crochet creations and handicrafts. The family stayed in Turkey for seven years.

Aisha's father finally reached Europe, crossing the Mediterranean by boat from Mersin in southeastern Turkey to Greece, before reaching Antwerp where her family joined her by plane thanks to the EU's family reunification.

"Life in Turkey was really difficult for us and it wasn't getting any better. It was getting worse and worse", explains the student. "He thought that Europe might be better for school and work".

The family of six lived in a studio apartment before managing to rent a flat in the countryside.

"In Belgium, it was very different because I felt different in the way I dressed, in the way I spoke. I didn't speak Dutch, I spoke English all the time. I felt I was different and that was really difficult," recalls Aisha.

Already trilingual - she speaks fluent Arabic, Turkish and English - she easily added Dutch to her linguistic arsenal and obtained a degree in marketing and communications. To finance her studies, she worked in a zero-waste organic shop and gave ceramics lessons.

This autumn, she starts a bachelor's degree in communications and hopes to work in marketing or journalism. As she has not been granted refugee status, she has to renew her residence permit every year and is trying to acquire Belgian citizenship.

More than 6 million Syrians were registered refugees or asylum seekers by the end of 2024, mainly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The EU is home to around 1.3 million Syrian refugees or asylum seekers, mainly distributed across Germany, Sweden and Austria.

The day after Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, a number of European countries, including Germany, Denmark and Austria, announced their intention to suspend the assessment of further assylum applications from Syrians.

This year, Syrians have lodged fewer asylum applications in EU countries, according to figures from a report by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), published on 8 September.

Syrians are no longer the leading nationality among asylum seekers in the 27-member bloc, a status which now belongs to Venezuelan and Afghan nationals. The EUAA warns however that certain groups of Syrians are still at risk of persecution.