2,582 Syrian refugees left Jordan during first 7 months of 2023 — UNHCR

AMMAN — A total of  2,582 Syrian refugees left Jordan to return to Syria during the first seven months of this year, according to data issued by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

The data showed that 20,061 Syrian refugees in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq returned to Syria in 2023.

In 2022,  50,966 Syrian refugees returned to Syria from various refugee-hosting countries, compared with 35,624 in 2021, 38,235 in 2020 and 94,971 in 2019.

This year, an average of 95 people return to Syria each day, with a monthly rate of 2,866, according to UNHCR.

In recent remarks, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ayman  Safadi, stressed the need to take practical and immediate steps to create the necessary conditions for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, and called on the relevant UN organisations to launch these steps urgently.

In a meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, Safadi stressed the need to continue working with the Syrian government and the international community to provide the requirements for the return of about a thousand Syrian refugees as a model that establishes and encourages a comprehensive plan for the voluntary return of refugees, according to a recent Foreign Ministry statement.

From 2016 through the end of last month, 373,912 Syrian refugees returned home, including 67,312 from Jordan.

According to a UN survey published in June, 1.1 per cent of Syrian refugees in four Arab countries reported wanting to return to their country within a year.

The study showed that 97 per cent of the Syrian refugees surveyed do not intend to return to their country within the next 12 months, compared with 2.4 per cent who were undecided.

Jordan has hosted over 1.3 million Syrian refugees since the beginning of the crisis in Syria in 2011, including the approximately 655,000 Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR.