DAMASCUS: Almost 30 percent of the millions of Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries want to return home in the next year, following the fall of President Bashar Assad, up from almost none last year, the head of the UN’s refugee agency said.
The shift is based on an assessment done by the UN in January, weeks after Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels, bringing an abrupt end to a 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.
“We have seen the needle move, finally, after years of decline,” Filippo Grandi told a small group of reporters in Damascus, after holding meetings with the Syria’s new ruling administration.
The number of Syrians wishing to return “had reached almost zero. It’s now nearly 30 percent in the space of a few weeks. There is a message there, which I think is very important, must be listened to and must be acted upon,” he said.
Around 200,000 Syrian refugees have already returned since Assad fell, he said, in addition to around 300,000 who fled back to Syria from Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war in September and October, most of whom are thought to have stayed.
Returning the roughly 6 million Syrians who fled abroad and the millions who became internally displaced has been a main aim of Syria’s new administration.
But the civil war has left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. Syria remains under a harsh Western sanctions regime that effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.
To aid Syrians returning, many of whom often sell all their belongings to pay for the trip, UN agencies are providing some cash aid for transportation and will help with food and to reconstruct at least parts of broken homes, Grandi said.
More aid is needed from donors, Grandi said, and sanctions should be reconsidered. He did not comment directly on an announcement on Friday by the new US administration of a broad suspension of foreign aid programs.
“If sanctions are lifted, this will improve the conditions in the places where people return,” he said.
The US earlier this month provided a six-month sanctions exemption for some sectors, including energy, but Syria’s new leaders say much more relief is needed.
Grandi said refugees were responding to a political process that the new administration’s leader Ahmed Sharaa has committed to, aimed at producing a governing authority by March 1 that better represents Syria’s diversity.
“Refugees are listening to what he’s saying, to what his people are saying, and that’s why I think many people decided to go back,” Grandi said. “But many more will come if these things continue to be positive.”
Nearly 30% of Syrians want to go home, up from almost zero, UN refugee chief says
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Nearly 30% of Syrians want to go home, up from almost zero, UN refugee chief says
- Filippo Grandi says "needle has moved" on refugees wanting to return now Bashar Assad has been deposed
Medical charity ‘may have to halt Gaza operations in March’
- MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures
PARIS: Banned from the Gaza Strip with 36 aid bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will have to end its operations there in March if Israel does not reverse its decision.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Israel confirmed on Thursday that it was barring 37 major international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip, accusing them
of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.
FASTFACT
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.
“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered ... That registration expired on Dec. 31, 2025,” said Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, on France Inter.
“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process, and to date, we have not received a response. We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March,” if Israel maintains its decision, she said.
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed,” the president of MSF France said.
According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.
The UN chief “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in the statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
