Nearly 30% of Syrians Want to Go Home, up from Almost Zero, UN Refugee Chief Says

This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Nearly 30% of Syrians Want to Go Home, up from Almost Zero, UN Refugee Chief Says

This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's de factor leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (R) receiving United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (L) in Damascus on January 25, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

Almost 30% of the millions of Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries want to return home in the next year, following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, up from almost none last year, the head of the UN's refugee agency said.

The shift is based on an assessment done by the UN in January, weeks after Assad was ousted by opposition factions, bringing an abrupt end to a 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.

"We have seen the needle move, finally, after years of decline," Filippo Grandi told a small group of reporters in Damascus, after holding meetings with the Syria's new ruling administration.

The number of Syrians wishing to return "had reached almost zero. It's now nearly 30% in the space of a few weeks. There is a message there, which I think is very important, must be listened to and must be acted upon," he said.

Around 200,000 Syrian refugees have already returned since Assad fell, he said, in addition to around 300,000 who fled back to Syria from Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war in September and October, most of whom are thought to have stayed.

Returning the roughly 6 million Syrians who fled abroad and the millions who became internally displaced has been a main aim of Syria's new administration.

But the civil war has left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. Syria remains under a harsh Western sanctions regime that effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.

To aid Syrians returning, many of whom often sell all their belongings to pay for the trip, UN agencies are providing some cash aid for transportation and will help with food and to reconstruct at least parts of broken homes, Grandi said.

More aid is needed from donors, Grandi said, and sanctions should be reconsidered. He did not comment directly on an announcement on Friday by the new US administration of a broad suspension of foreign aid programs.

"If sanctions are lifted, this will improve the conditions in the places where people return," he said.

The US earlier this month provided a six-month sanctions exemption for some sectors, including energy, but Syria's new leaders say much more relief is needed.

Grandi said refugees were responding to a political process that the new administration's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has committed to, aimed at producing a governing authority by March 1 that better represents Syria's diversity.

"Refugees are listening to what he's saying, to what his people are saying, and that's why I think many people decided to go back," Grandi said. "But many more will come if these things continue to be positive."



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”