A Syrian mother and her daughter pictured on their return to Syria from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous border crossing on 20 June 2025.©UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
UN High Commissioner for Refugees marks World Refugee Day meeting Syrians going home, but warns that returns will prove short-lived without increased international assistance
By Celine Schmitt and Hameed Maarouf in Jdeidet Yabous, Syria
The international community must seize the political opportunity created by the collapse of the Assad regime to help rebuild Syria and ensure the 13 million people displaced during the war can return home, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on 20 June during a visit to the country to mark World Refugee Day.
Grandi met Syrian families re-entering the country after more than a decade as refugees in neighbouring Lebanon, who he said had “voted with their feet and decided to go back and restart their lives” following the fall of the previous government in December. The official Jdeidet Yabous border point is now “a welcoming place”, he said, but added that there were many challenges ahead for returning families.
At the border, trucks laden with people and possessions sounded their horns in celebration as they drove into Syria, and smiling children waved the country’s new three-starred flag as their parents formalized the paperwork for their return.
“It is very significant for me to spend World Refugee Day in a country where refugees can finally stop being refugees and can resume their place in their own communities, their own societies, in their own country,” Grandi said.
“It will be tough, and they will need a lot of help,” he continued. “Everything needs to be reconstructed in Syria. There is no electricity available to most people, the services are very, very fragile, and security continues to be a challenge in many places. Between … the new authorities of Syria and the international community, that’s the big challenge: bring Syria back to its feet and give a future to all these people that are making the decision to go back to their homes.”
A young Syrian refugee sit on a bus crossing the Jdeidet Yabous border between Lebanon and Syria. ©UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
More than 2 million Syrians have returned home since December, including nearly 600,000 from neighbouring countries and just under 1.5 million who were displaced in other parts of Syria.
More are expected to head home this summer following the end of the school year, but Grandi warned that without more international support to rebuild homes, schools and other vital infrastructure and services, the returns could prove short-lived.
“Then, even the people who have remained in Syria will opt to leave again, and that has to be avoided at all costs,” he said. “So on World Refugee Day, I really appeal to the international community to step up their support to this country and its people.”
© UNHCR
Among those crossing the border on Friday was Iman, who was heading back to her home in Aleppo with her three children after 14 years living as a refugee in Lebanon. She described her plans to reestablish her once-thriving tailoring business, enrol her children in school, and rebuild her war-damaged home with the help of her husband, who has remained working in Lebanon for now.
“I am here to go to Aleppo and see how the situation is. If the situation is good … I can settle down again and live the life I used to live,” Iman said.
Asked what it was like to be back in Syria after such a long absence, she replied: “It’s an indescribable feeling of happiness. I cannot explain or describe it. Now we will go home and everything will go back to the way it was before, and even better, God willing.”
A bus carrying Syrian refugees returning to Syria from Lebanon drives across the Jdeidet Yabous border point. © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
UNHCR is supporting returning Syrians with everything from transportation home and house repairs to legal aid for the replacement of lost identity and property documents. Much of its support to returnees and the local communities where they live is coordinated through a network of UNHCR-supported community centres.
But severe cuts to humanitarian aid have forced the agency to reduce its workforce and assistance programmes in Syria, with 17 out of 122 community centres nationwide already shuttered and a further 50 threatened with imminent closure.
Despite these challenges, UNHCR and its partners will continue to support the people of Syria, including those who have returned home and the millions who remain displaced within the country and across the region.
Grandi urged donors – from governments to individuals, companies and foundations – to continue to support this effort and so bring “one of the most long-standing refugee situations to a positive conclusion.”
