‘We tasted the horrors of war’: Stories of refugees who returned home | Refugee Issues

About 1.3 million Syrians returned from abroad in 2025, almost three times the number of the previous year, when two million Syrian refugees returned home, reducing the number of Syrian refugees from 6 million to 4.9 million.

On December 8, 2024, al-Assad kingdomwhich lasted 54 years, was ousted by a coup d’état.

The 14-year war has created the world’s worst displacement crisis, with some 6.8 million Syrians, nearly a third of the population, fleeing the country at the height of the war in 2021, seeking refuge wherever they can find it.

More than half of these refugees, about 3.74 million, settled in Turkey, while 840,000 found refuge in Lebanon and 672,000 in Jordan.

Hiam told Al Jazeera that he returned to Syria with his family after more than ten years in their host country. “The reason that forced us to return was the high cost of living we faced in our host country. We lived there for 12 years, and it was very difficult for us as refugees.”

We returned to Syria, thank God, but at first it was difficult because we couldn’t find a house or anything. Syria is now very different from when we left. The return was very difficult at first – the situation was very difficult for me.

“But thank God, I became stronger. The first part was very difficult, and in the beginning, it was difficult to bear,” said Hiam.

According to UNHCR data, about 556,00 Syrians returned from Turkey, 465,000 from Lebanon and 256,000 from Jordan.

More than seven in 10 returnees reported improvements in security and freedom of movement in Syria, according to UNHCR. About three-thirds of Syrian refugees outside of Syria said they wanted to return home.

Returns in 2026 reached 549,800 in mid-May, led by the deterioration of the situation in Lebanon.