Syrian refugees hopeful about returning home, but humanitarian agencies warn against rushing back

Every night for half of her life, Ghena Ali Mostafa has spent the moments before sleep envisioning what she'd do first if she ever had the chance to step back into the Syrian home she fled as a girl. She imagined herself laying down and pressing her lips to the ground, and melting into a hug from the grandmother she left behind. She thought about her father, who disappeared when she was 13.

It was all beyond the realm of possibility as her teenage years and early 20s ticked past. Then, after rebels toppled the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, those thoughts of home snapped back within reach.

"Today I have a country that I can go back and build. Today I do not need to be a refugee anymore," Mostafa said in an interview from her apartment in Toronto on Monday.

"Today I have a home and this home is waiting for me."

Mostafa, 24, is one of an untold number of Syrian refugees contemplating travelling back to Syria after the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday ended 13 years of civil war and decades more under his family's violent dictatorship.

Elated families say they're revelling in their first tangible hope of going home, but the leader of a Canadian support foundation says they're also watching closely to see where the country's political, economic and humanitarian situation goes from here.

Mostafa left Syria with her sister and mother for their own safety after her father, who had rebelled against the regime, was "forcefully disappeared" along with thousands of other government opponents in 2013. The three women lived as refugees in Turkey and Jordan before moving to Canada in 2018. 

They are still doing "everything" to find out what happened to her father and still have family in Syria. Mostafa phoned them this weekend and heard them speak freely, without fear, for the first time since she left.

"I never thought I will witness this moment in my 20s. I thought maybe my kids or maybe my grandkids will witness this moment. But for me to witness this moment, for me to have a home that I can go to, for me to have a hope that I could be reunited with my dad," she said, visibly shaking. 

"I am beyond happy and I am beyond overwhelmed."

More than six million Syrians became refugees during a decade of civil war, according to the United Nations. More than 44,000 of those people have landed in Canada since November 2015.

The rebel offensive that ultimately drove Assad from power on Sunday has prompted scores of people to start making their way back, crowding some border crossings with neighbouring countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Marwa Khobieh, executive director of the Syrian Canadian Foundation, said she believes many families in Canada will be anxiously thinking about returning to see their loved ones and begin rebuilding the country — but said it's not yet safe enough to consider a permanent move.

"I think most of them would like to visit. In terms of moving? Not yet, because Syria is not stable yet and everyone still has a lot of concerns about the future and what unfolds," said Khobieh, an activist who hasn't been back to Syria since leaving for her own safety in 2012.