Turkiye’s Syrian refugees in dilemma about returning home

Thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkiye face uncertainty about returning home due to economic, security, and infrastructure challenges.

More than 50,000 Syrian refugees have left Turkiye to return home since Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. But for many others living in the country, the thought raises a host of worrying questions.

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In Altindag, a northeastern suburb of Ankara home to many Syrians, Radigue Muhrabi, who has a newborn and two other children, said she could not quite envisage going back to Syria “where everything is so uncertain”.

“My husband used to work with my father at his shoe shop in Aleppo but it was totally destroyed. We don’t know anything about work opportunities nor schools for the kids,” she said.

After the civil war began in 2011, Syria’s second city was badly scarred by fighting between the rebels and Russian-backed regime forces.

Even so, daily life in Turkiye has not been easy for the Syrian refugees who have faced discrimination, political threats of expulsion and even physical attacks.

In August 2021, an angry mob smashed up shops and cars thought to belong to Syrians in Altindag as anti-migrant sentiment boiled over at a time of deepening economic insecurity in Turkiye.