Some Syrians are going home a year after the fall of Assad. Others are cautious about a one-way trip
CBC
At the Öncüpınar border crossing in southern Turkey, tables, chairs and sofas are piled high on the back of trucks lined up behind a gate. On the back of one sits a precariously strapped washing machine.
When the crossing arm lifts up, the trucks loaded with belongings drive forward toward the Syrian side of the border.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime last year, Turkish officials say more than 500,000 Syrians have returned home after living under temporary protection status for several years in Turkey. For many of those travelling now, their crossing is a one-way trip — once they leave they have no immediate option to return legally to Turkey.
"We have a lot of excitement. We want to go," said 25-year-old Hussein Alsheikh Mohamad. "We want our country to rise up."
Mohamad fled Syria 13 years ago to escape the civil war, and was one of more than three million refugees who sought shelter in Turkey.
On Dec. 1 as he spoke at the border with a crew from CBC News, he was moving back with his wife and his young daughter. He said he planned to stay with relatives temporarily, while he worked to repair his family home in Aleppo that suffered damage during the war. "There will certainly be difficulties," he said. "But we are going to try to make it work. "
When Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011 after a violent government crackdown on protesters, it created a humanitarian crisis. In the years that followed, more than 12 million Syrians were forcibly displaced, with nearly all of them fleeing to neighbouring countries as refugees.
Turkey took in the highest number of Syrians, granting them temporary protection and giving them the legal right to stay. The government in Ankara received more than $16 billion from the EU to help support the Syrians and the communities hosting them.
Over the years, the presence of Syrian refugees in the country has been polarizing. In the most recent presidential election in 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, repeatedly promised that if he was elected, he would send all of the Syrians home.
Now hundreds of thousands are choosing to return, with more planning to in the future if the country stabilizes and rebuilds more of its critical infrastructure.
"There are a lot of things that have to be done there," said Cuma Hidir, 26, a Syrian who fled to Turkey 14 years ago.
"We need to be patient. It's only been one year, I think in two or three years it will be better."
Hidir told CBC News he remembers fleeing the bombings along with nine other members of his family. After he arrived in Turkey, they spent around six months living in a tent in a camp before eventually renting an apartment.
The 26-year-old is now a father of two and works in a textile factory in the southern city of Gaziantep.
