Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria on December 8, 2024, more than 500,000 Syrians have returned to their homeland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). That number was reached on May 15, representing an average of 100,000 people returning to their country each month since the dictator's departure for Russia.

According to the head of the UNHCR mission in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, most of those returning to Syria come from neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt.

Nearly 600,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) within Syria have also returned home since December. "However, 7.4 million Syrians remain uprooted within the country, and there are more than 6 million Syrian refugees worldwide," the UNHCR said.

The UN agency also expressed concern about seeing these people return to a country where everything needs to be rebuilt. People's homes are still in shambles, and in some cities, most buildings are uninhabitable. The sanitation systems also need to be repaired.

"When I saw my house, it was in ruins," Ibtihal, a Syrian woman who returned to Daraa, the cradle of the Syrian revolution in 2011, in the south of the country, told UNHCR. "Life is really difficult - basic necessities are lacking. The sewage system is blocked, and I can't even manage the simplest things. I don't have money to repair anything. My husband wants to work so we can rebuild our house little by little."

A catastrophic economic situation

The return of Syrians from exile is all the more challenging given Syria's catastrophic economic situation, after 14 years of crisis and bombing. "Major Syrian cities such as Raqqa, Aleppo, and Homs have been largely destroyed by the massive and intense use of explosive weapons. 80 percent of the city of Raqqa was razed in 2017," according to the organization Handicap International, which works with disabled groups of people, including survivors of war and explosions of bombs and mines.

The NGO already warned in 2022 that the level of contamination of Syrian territory by explosive substances was "unprecedented in the entire history of mine clearance. The presence of unexploded weapons (UXO), i.e., bombs, rockets, and mortars that failed to explode on impact due to malfunction, and other deliberately planted explosive devices, such as antipersonnel mines and booby traps, is so intense that it will take several generations to make Syria safe," the organization warned.

To help resettle displaced Syrians, the UNHCR provides "small-scale programs to repair damaged parts of homes" as well as small "cash grants to returnees to cover their basic needs during the first months of their return," Gonzalo Vargas Llosa told the official Syrian news agency SANA.

The agency also provides them with "legal support to obtain official documents," an essential element for proving their Syrian nationality and accessing essential services.

Lifting of international sanctions

But the UNHCR is concerned about a critical lack of funding, as its budget has been severely affected by Donald Trump's return to the US presidency. Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, he signed an executive order freezing US foreign aid for 90 days. Since then, the Trump administration has virtually dismantled the US development agency USAID, which had an annual budget of 42.8 billion dollars (around 37.5 billion euros) and alone accounted for 42 percent of humanitarian aid disbursed worldwide. US funding represented approximately 40 percent of the UNHCR's budget.

The overall budget for the reconstruction of Syria is estimated at several hundred billion euros. On May 13, US President Donald Trump announced the formal lifting of US financial sanctions. Syria has been subject to international sanctions since 1979. These sanctions were tightened after Bashar al-Assad's regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests in 2011, triggering the war.

A few days later, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the Treasury and State Departments were "implementing authorizations to encourage new investment in Syria."

On May 20, the European Union, too, announced the lifting of all economic sanctions against Syria put in place under Assad. This lifting of sanctions primarily affects the Syrian banking system, which had previously been barred from accessing international capital markets. It also unfreezes the Syrian central bank's assets.

These measures should allow for the return of investment to Syria and the revival of the economy, but it will take decades for the country to recover from years of conflict.