{"id":15730,"date":"2025-11-19T12:59:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15730"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:59:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:59:04","slug":"more-than-a-million-syrian-refugees-returning-home-to-an-uncertain-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15730","title":{"rendered":"More than a million Syrian refugees returning home to an uncertain future"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is estimated that more than a million Syrian refugees have returned home since the\u00a0fall of the Assad regime nearly a year ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For many it has been a difficult decision to leave life in refugee camps and return to the unknown, a country badly scarred by war.<\/p>\n

Aotearoa NZ chairperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Tim Mahood, is just back from one such camp, the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.<\/p>\n

He told RNZ’s\u00a0World Watch\u00a0<\/i>that while many Syrians have left, the situation in the camp for those remaining is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n

Mahood said the Zaatari camp’s population is down to 45,000 from 55,000, but there is just one doctor at any given time.<\/p>\n

”If that doctor has to transport someone to the local hospital, then there’s just no doctor on duty.”<\/p>\n

He said the situation is quite dire.<\/p>\n

“But the one thing that struck me is how positive everyone is there.”<\/p>\n

Mahood said those who have returned to Syria, or are thinking about it, face serious issues.<\/p>\n

“It depends on who you believe. Syria is now apparently stable so people can go home, but there’s been a civil war raging there for over a decade. There are large parts of it that have been absolutely destroyed and large swathes of the country resemble Gaza.<\/p>\n

“So people going back there are going back to potentially no home.”<\/p>\n

Mahood said buildings have been destroyed, so as well as no home, they are facing no services, education and an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

He said most of the Syrian refugees want to go home, but there is not a lot of infrastructure there.<\/p>\n

If they decide to go, it is a one way ticket and UNHCR supports their transition home.<\/p>\n

“The problem is that if they go home they find that their family is struggling and effectively they have no home to go to.”<\/p>\n

Mahood said once the refugees go home they lose their refugee status and they cannot come back.<\/p>\n

“It’s a catch-22. Do you go in circumstances or do you stay and have perpetually this sinking lid of support available within Jordan?”<\/p>\n

Mahood said even with less funding for UNHCR, much can still be done for the refugees.<\/p>\n

“There are people around the world who really need your help and are so much worse off than people in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n

Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is estimated that more than a million Syrian refugees have returned home since the\u00a0fall of the Assad regime nearly a year ago. For many it has been a difficult decision to leave life in refugee camps and return to the unknown, a country badly scarred by war. Aotearoa NZ chairperson for the United Nations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15732,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions\/15732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}