Khaberni - Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced today, Saturday, that 550,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Turkey to their country since the fall of the regime of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad last December.
About 2.4 million Syrians still remain refugees in Turkey, where their number exceeded 3.5 million at the peak of the war in Syria, according to Turkish authorities.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees stated last Friday that a total of 1.16 million Syrians have returned to their homeland since December 8th last year.
The Commission added that more than 1.9 million internally displaced persons in Syria have returned to their cities that they had left during the years of war following the outbreak of the revolution in 2011.
It indicated that more than 7 million Syrians are still displaced within the country, while about 4.5 million remain refugees abroad.
It should be noted that the war broke out in Syria after the Assad regime suppressed the peaceful revolution in 2011, leading to the displacement and refuge of millions.
Limited International Support
Earlier, the Deputy Head of the UNHCR mission in Syria, Asir Al-Mudaeen, stated that there is international support for Syria, but it is insufficient to meet the needs of refugees and the local community.
Al-Mudaeen explained in an Al Jazeera interview that the return of refugees will be difficult in some areas affected by the conflict, due to significant destruction and a lack of basic services, revealing that returns are concentrated in major cities like Damascus, its countryside, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Daraa.
She clarified that the commission is implementing support programs in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to facilitate voluntary return, including providing transportation and financial grants to returnees.
Syria is witnessing one of the largest waves of voluntary returns of refugees since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8th last year, with hundreds of thousands preferring to return to their country after years of forced refuge, while returnees from Turkey registered the highest proportion among them.
