Syrian refugees across Europe celebrated Assad’s collapse. But an angry migration debate is brewing

By Rob Picheta, CNN

London (CNN) — “I’ve been thinking in the past few years: Will I die away from my country?” Abdulaziz Almashi said, reciting the question that he and millions of displaced Syrians have asked themselves. “Will I be able to go back and see my mum and dad again?”

For years, they had seemed distant hopes. But hours after Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime collapsed, Almashi braved stormy weather to celebrate in his new home of London, surrounded by hundreds of ecstatic compatriots.

“It’s just a dream,” he told CNN, after organizing a rally in the city’s historic Trafalgar Square. “It is emotional, and it’s sinking in: Really, Assad is gone.”

Almashi has lived in Britain since 2009, unable to return to Syria due to his political activism and his outspoken opposition to the deposed dictator. He gained refugee status, now holds British citizenship, and has set up London’s Syria Solidarity Campaign (SSC). “Both my grandmothers passed away while I’ve been (in London),” he said. “I wasn’t there to say my goodbye. I was wondering whether I’ll ever be able to see her grave and lay flowers.”

Now, it all feels possible. “I would like to go back to my country as soon as possible … I really want to be part of the future of Syria.”

But Almashi’s enthusiasm was punctured quickly. Amid uncertainty over the future of Syria’s government, Britain – along with Germany, Austria, Ireland and a host of other European countries – said they would suspend decisions on Syrian asylum claims. Austria also said it would look at deporting people back to Syria.

It was a sudden response that those governments said was necessary to take stock of a rapidly changing situation in the country. But it unsettled much of Syria’s huge diaspora in Europe, particularly those with outstanding asylum claims or who did not gain citizenship in their adopted countries. More than a million Syrians live across the continent, many of them arriving amid the 2015 migrant crisis that broke out as a result of the country’s civil war.

And it comes just as governments across Europe harden their stances on migration in an effort to quell surging support for populist and far-right forces, who have linked increases in migration to the availability of housing, health care and public services.

“They really ruined the happiness of so many Syrians across Europe,” Almashi of the continent’s leaders. “What shocked me most is how quick this decision was.”

‘The situation is dire’

Human rights groups including Amnesty International criticized leaders for pausing asylum processing. But the UN’s refugee agency said it was acceptable, as long as Syrians could still apply for asylum, noting the situation on the ground is “uncertain and highly fluid.”

In Germany, which took in more than a million Syrian refugees after 2015, the coming weeks feel particularly tense. Asylum processing there is paused; the country’s opposition leader, expected to take power in February’s election, has in the past raised the prospect of returning Syrians in the country.

Neighboring Austria went a step further. “I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation program to Syria,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said this week. Family reunions have also been suspended, the ministry said. Roughly 95,000 Syrians live in Austria, according to the ministry. So far this year, almost 13,000 asylum requests have been lodged.

The conversations are “incomprehensible,” said Tareq Alaows, a Syrian-German who came to the country as a refugee in 2015. “Emotionally, many Syrians long to return and actively participate in the reconstruction of their country. But rationally speaking, the situation remains extremely uncertain.”

“There are great hopes for a democratic Syria, but for this we need the support of the international community – including from German politics,” he added. “Instead, we are confronted with deportation debates that greatly unsettle and sometimes even retraumatize many Syrians.”

There is some irony that, nearly a decade after the migrant crisis prompted a populist backlash, the fall of Syria’s dictatorship has coincided with its resurgence. Centrist politicians across Europe have toughened their migration policies in recent months, spooked by the electoral success of charismatic right-wing and anti-migrant leaders.

Syrians have contributed to several European economies; Syrian people make up the largest group of foreign doctors in Germany, with around 10,000 working in its hospitals, according to Syrian Society for Doctors and Pharmacists in Germany. “If large numbers were to leave the country, care provision would not collapse, but there would be noticeable gaps,” Gerald Gass, the chairman of the German Hospital Federation, told Reuters.

But inflation, housing shortages and strained services have fueled frustration at migrant and refugee populations in many European countries, and the unrest has manifested itself at the ballot box in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and several others.

“The situation with migration in Europe at the moment is quite dire,” said Kay Marsh, a community engagement coordinator at British charity Samphire. Her group works with refugees in the coastal town of Dover, the landing spot for many of the small boats that carry asylum seekers across the Channel to Britain. “There will be people that will be looking at (Assad’s fall) as a way to get rid of people,” she predicted.

The conversations are beginning at a time when Syria’s governance is unclear. Many Western countries classify the triumphant rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) as a terrorist organization, and the country’s years-long war has left infrastructure and basic necessities in short supply.

“It is way too early to be able to understand what the situation is on the ground in Syria,” said Yasmine Nahlawi, a London-based legal consultant whose work has focused on the application of international legal frameworks to the conflict in Syria. “There are still so many security issues that have to be assessed,” she said, calling the decisions of European governments “insulting” to Syrians.

For now, most Syrians in Europe are intent on celebrating the fall of a regime that had seemed unshakable as recently as a month ago.

“It’s something that I never even thought of happening,” said Esther Baleh, a 22-year-old London-based fashion designer who fled Syria with her family in 2014. As Assad fled Damascus, Baleh and her friends “started calling each other and congratulating each other,” she said. “I felt like my identity had been rebuilt.”

As for Almashi and many Syrians across Europe, there is caution amid Baleh’s excitement. “Right now, there is no safe place” in Syria to return to, she said. But “potentially, once I know it’s safe,” she added; “it would be my dream to go back and rebuild my country.”

The-CNN-Wire
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