Tears and hope as Syrians return home from Turkiye

Ala Jabeer cried as he prepared to cross from Turkiye into Syria with his 10-year-old daughter on Tuesday, thirteen years after the war forced him to flee his home, Reuters reports.

He returns without his wife and three of his children who died in devastating earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria last year.

Father and daughter left days after Syrian rebels ousted Bashar Al-Assad from Damascus, and a day after President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkiye was opening its Yayladagi border gate to manage the return of some of the more than 3 million Syrian migrants it hosts.

“Just as I cried for the children I lost in the earthquake, I am crying today because I am leaving Hatay and Turkiye behind,” said Jabeer, a former ship-worker who arrived in Turkiye’s Hatay province in 2011.

Dual earthquakes in early 2023 killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkiye, with the city of Antakya where Jabeer and his family lived among the hardest hit. The region is still recovering from the widespread destruction.

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Over the weekend, rebels seized Damascus and Assad fled to Russia following 13 years of civil war. Turkiye has said it gave no support and had no involvement in the offensive by the Syrian opposition forces it has backed for years against Assad.

Yet, Syrians in Turkiye have been excited by the prospect of returning home since the rebellion.

Jabeer was hopeful for the future as he completed paperwork for him and his daughter, Sirin, at a mobile service unit at the border in Yayladagi, which was quiet despite Erdogan’s move to reopen it to ease pressure on another crossing in the area.

“God willing, things will be better than under Assad’s government. We’ve already seen that his oppression is over. We are going back because now we think that the ones who took over are already doing things to end oppression,” he said.

“The most important reason for me to return is that my mother lives in Latakia. She can take care of my daughter, so I can work,” Jabeer said, adding that he was grateful to Turkiye for taking care of them with health services, shelter and jobs.

On Monday, Erdogan highlighted the goal of “voluntary, safe, dignified and regular returns” as Syria stabilises.

The Yayladagi crossing close to the north-west edge of Syria had been closed since 2013 due to nearby fighting.

NATO member, Turkiye, controls swathes of land in northern Syria after several cross-border incursions against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara sees as a terrorist group tied to PKK militants who have fought the Turkish state for 40 years.

Turkiye said on Sunday that it wanted the new Syrian administration to be inclusive and for Syrians to determine their own future.

READ: Thousands return to Syria after fall of Assad regime