Shortly after the fall of the Assad regime, Feras calls with his brothers and sister in Homs. Again they got bigger, he saw – the boys “muscular even, just bodybuilders.” He has not seen them for more than ten years. They give the phone to their grandmother, who asks if Feras will come home quickly. “She is 86 and does not know how long she will last.”
Of course he would like to see them, but if he goes back to Syria, if only for a moment, he is afraid that he is no longer allowed to enter the Netherlands, says the 30-year-old in a cafe in Amsterdam. He works as a self -employed person in the hospitality industry and will receive a permanent residence permit in a year, Dutch citizenship. Then, he says, he only wants to think seriously about going back to Syria forever. “Now I would only be a burden to my family,” he says. “There is no work there, and I have not earned enough money here.”
A social worker born in Syria with two young children says the same thing: “If I go back now, I am a problem for my parents. We are only more mouths to feed. From here I send them money and I can help them. ”
After the fall of dictator Assad, mid -December, “there is room” for the return of Syrian refugees, asylum minister Marjolein Faber (PVV) told RTL News at the end of January. Twenty Syrians voluntarily left. “That shows that it is really safe,” wrote her party leader Geert Wilders on X. “So the rest can follow quickly, if necessary mandatory.”
That is why the social worker certainly does not want her name in the newspaper: she is afraid of what the PVV will do with it. For the same reason, the other interviewees only want to give their first name.
Now I would only be a burden to my family there
In December, the government introduced a procedure summit for asylum applications from Syrians. The Netherlands followed the example of other EU countries. As long as the situation in Syria is unclear, a good assessment of new asylum requests is impossible, according to Faber.
The return and departure service has 180 applications for returning. “They are still small numbers, but it is expected that this number will grow in the coming period,” said Faber. In 2015, the civil war in Syria caused a peak in the number of refugees to Europe. According to the CBS, 167.127 Syrians now live in the Netherlands and there are another 26,558 children with at least one Syrian parent. Nearly 200,000 Syrians, of whom for the time being only makes a fraction to leave.
NRC Speaked five young Syrians at a precarious moment, when the question of going back or remain. What are their doubts? And does the 900 euros that Minister Faber promises to them on return?
A Syrian couple is divided: she, the social worker with two young children, with her permanent job and her perfect Dutch, wants to stay. He wants to go back. At the time, he was the one who wanted to leave Syria, while she found it difficult to separate from her family. He never really started to feel at home in the Netherlands, she says. “In his head my husband always remains a refugee here, always less than others.”
She works at a reception location for Ukrainian refugees. Recently she heard an older Ukrainian woman say that if she had one day to live, she would go to her home country quickly to die there. “I understand that very well.”
Especially for her children, who were both born in the Netherlands, she finds it difficult. “When we go back they will lose their land, as we lost Syria.” Her son also needs care that she cannot find in Syria. “If I already go back, I have to be strong enough, financially and in terms of training, to be able to build something there.” She prefers to do a Master Middle East studies in the Netherlands. “Then I better understand what happens there.”
If I already go back I have to be strong enough, financially and in terms of training, to be able to build something there
For Farah, a 22-year-old laboratory technician, it is very simple: she lives all her life in the Netherlands and does not want to leave. “I grew up here.” Maybe she wants to go on holiday to Syria, but nothing more. “I think many young people have this feeling.”
Her father, who had to flee Syria because he demonstrated against Assad’s regime, thinks differently. “And I also understand: he had a whole life there that I was not there.” He longs for everything he has left behind: his house, his work, his family. Farah thinks that her parents will stay in the Netherlands for the time being, if only because her mother does not dare to go back. “She has PTSD and finally feels safe here.”
One big hole
Feras was also fleeing Assad’s regime. He supported the protest against the government from Homs – which was known as the ‘capital of the revolution’ – and helped the rebels in the fighting that followed as a voluntary nurse. In 2015 he left Syria and fled to the Netherlands via Turkey.
Feras feels responsible for the reconstruction of his city. But, he says, “only when I have learned more here” – maybe in a year or two. A few months ago he started training as a mental coach, hoping that he can help people in Syria with their war traumas.
Unlike Farah and her young acquaintances, Feras thinks that “ninety percent” of the Syrians he speaks wants to return. “They just wait at the right time.”
Suppose the Dutch government would now cancel all Syrian residence permits, he fantasizes, then more than 160,000 Syrians end up in nothing. “That would not help anyone.”
That is what the Dutch branch of UN organization IOM (International Organization for Migration) says, which supervises and facilitates the return of refugees. Spokesperson Pieter Maas: “Syria is not yet ready to organize mass return. Return should be accompanied by reconstruction, so that people will soon end up in places where they can go. ”
Feras would prefer to look in Syria before he decides on returning and signing a statement from the ministry with which he renounces his residence permit. “Everyone would seize such a chance. Not only to see your family, but also to see on the spot what is needed, so that we can prepare for it in the Netherlands. ” But if he goes all, he doesn’t know if he can come back. Inquiries by NRC at the Ministry did not lead to clarity.
Feras would prefer to look in Syria before he decides on returning and signing a statement
Syrian refugees should be given the opportunity to go back to their home country temporarily without their asylum procedure or residence permit being endangered, opposition parties GroenLinks-PvdA and CDA presented in the Lower House on Wednesday. To see if their family is still alive, whether their house is still standing. “The country is in ruins, return is not a slight decision to take,” said GroenLinks-PVDA member Kati Piri. Minister Faber is ‘very cautious’ about the proposal.
Debt of everything
The fact that the PVV dominates this theme causes unrest among the Syrians. Solafa, a 33-year-old woman who has a residence status, but still lives in an asylum seekers’ center in Harderwijk, is concerned about what ‘the right-wing party’ could do against refugees. The social worker also hears it everywhere around her: “People think they will really send us back to Syria.” The 22-year-old laborant Farah thinks that this is not possible according to European law, but she thinks it is miserable enough that “we are blamed for everything.”
Emad, photographer and Student Computer Science at the VU University in Amsterdam, last spoke Syrians who are still in an asylum seekers’ center. “They are a bit hopeless. Because of the asylum stop they are already thinking about going back. And I tell them honestly: go back, here you only waste time. ”
He knows for sure that he doesn’t want to go back. “Maybe to another country, warmer than the Netherlands. But: not to Syria. ” The last family he still has tries to go to the United States. “I have a passport now, so the right -wing parties are no longer fighting me. But if I didn’t have a passport, I would be very scared. ”
He himself is mainly concerned about the new government in Syria. He believes that European leaders interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa have embraced far too quickly, while they do not yet know what he is like. “Because they hope that the Syrian refugees will return.”
Minister Faber makes 900 euros available for voluntary departing Syrians. Not surprising, says Emad. “I understand that people think it’s a low price, but I think it is something extra. Nobody needs to give you money. ”
The others have heard indignant reactions in their environment. “Some people have paid 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 euros to smugglers to flee to a safe country,” says Feras. People have sold their things for it, their houses. And then 900 euros. “Anyway, no amount would convince me to leave before I am ready.”