Why refugees won’t return to Syria
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s call on Syrian refugees to return to the homeland has sparked many reactions, as some still fear returning to cities and towns occupied by Iranian forces accused of violations and abuses against the locals.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has called on Syrian refugees to return to their cities and villages, sparking negative reactions from those displaced.
During the opening of a Russian-sponsored international conference on the return of Syrian refugees held Nov. 11-12 at the Umayyad Conference Palace in the Syrian capital Damascus, Assad spoke about the difficulties that the government is facing regarding the return of Syrians.
“Today we are facing an issue that consists of three interconnected elements: millions of refugees wishing to return, hundreds of billions of destroyed infrastructure built over the course of decades and terrorism that continues to lurk in some areas,” he said.
A’ed Ghanem is a retired Arabic-language teacher from the city of al-Bukamal in Deir ez-Zor governorate. He fled to Germany in 2015 and does not want to return to al-Bukamal, which the Islamic State (IS) occupied in 2014. The Syrian regime and allied Iranian forces took control of it in 2017.
