UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Friday urged the international community to support Syria’s recovery in order to speed up reconstruction and allow more refugees to return home, fourteen years after the start of the war.
“I am here to appeal to the international community to provide more aid and support to the Syrian government in this major challenge of rebuilding the country,” Grandi told reporters during his visit to the Syrian capital.
More than two million refugees and internally displaced people have returned to their homes in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in early December, the UN official said the day before.
“Among them, around 1.5 million internally displaced people have returned to their homes, and 600,000 — a significant number — are Syrians who had taken refuge in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and others, and have now returned,” he added.
According to Grandi, this figure “remains a fraction of the total number of Syrian refugees and displaced people, but it is nonetheless significant.”
After 14 years of civil war and Assad’s fall in December 2024, the first months of the year have seen a growing number of Syrians returning home.
According to UNHCR estimates, by the end of 2025 up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million internally displaced people could return to their homes.
Despite the returns, 13.5 million Syrians remain either refugees abroad or internally displaced.
The new authorities have inherited a country with a devastated economy and shattered infrastructure, where the majority of citizens live below the poverty line, according to the UN.
They are counting on support from Gulf and Western countries to begin reconstruction efforts, following the lifting of sanctions imposed on the previous regime by the European Union and the United States.
The UN estimates the cost of rebuilding Syria at more than $400 billion.
AFP
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