Nearly two years after Bashar al-Assad was ousted, the Syrians who rushed back home are discovering that the country they left behind is not the one they remember. Coming home to a nation emerging from war brings its own set of challenges, and for many, the dream of rebuilding has collided with a reality of destroyed infrastructure, scarce employment, and a dysfunctional state.
Samer, a barber who returned from Turkey, told European Pulse: "I regret coming back. In Turkey I was making about $1,000 a month. Today my income doesn't surpass $250-300." His colleague Mustafa, who returned from Egypt, works beside him in the same Damascus barbershop but has reached the opposite conclusion. Mustafa lives in his family home, pays no rent, and earns around $300 a month—roughly double what he took home after paying rent in Cairo. He does not regret coming back.
Samer's frustration is palpable. "My dream is to be able to buy a motorbike for $400, and I still can't, just so I can save on transport fares," he said. "I ran into a harsh reality. Barbershops here do not offer the services I used to provide, and the wages are so low they do not even cover the cost of getting from my home in Maraba, in rural Damascus, to the Mezzeh district in the heart of the capital, a distance of around 20 km." He added: "My whole life has changed: the cost of living is high, infrastructure is weak and there are constant power cuts, and electricity is essential to the work of a barber."
A mass return to a shattered country
The fall of al-Assad's regime in December 2024 triggered one of the fastest mass returns of refugees and displaced people in recent history. By the end of May 2026, UNHCR counted roughly 1.67 million Syrians who had returned from neighbouring countries, alongside 1.92 million internally displaced people who had gone back to their areas of origin. That adds up to nearly 3.6 million people, mostly concentrated in Aleppo, Idlib, rural areas near Damascus, and the capital itself.
They all returned to a country the World Bank estimates has sustained $108 billion in direct physical damage, with reconstruction needs of around $216 billion—roughly ten times Syria's entire GDP in 2024. Homes remain damaged or destroyed, power cuts are frequent, civil administration is dysfunctional, and formal employment is scarce.
Caught between two worlds
Mawia al-Shaer came back from Germany with her three children, the eldest ten, the youngest six. All had studied in German, but they are now in Arabic-language schools following a curriculum they have never encountered before. "There is a big difference between schooling in Syria and in Germany," al-Shaer told European Pulse. "Private schools are extremely expensive here, whereas in Germany the service was free." Private schools in Damascus charge at least $2,000 per child per year. State schools are overcrowded. Al-Shaer cannot afford the first and does not trust the second. "This will make my children feel withdrawn and afraid and unwilling to go to school," she said. "Everything will change for them: the overcrowded classrooms, their inability to express themselves, which may expose them to bullying or class prejudice because of the different language and way of thinking they acquired in Germany." She now wishes she had visited her relatives and returned to Germany before the new school year began.
Amer Hassan arrived from Germany with more than $45,000 in savings. He wanted to open a restaurant. He paid rent, started fitting out the space, and ran out of money before it opened. "I got roughly halfway and then it all came to a halt," Hassan told European Pulse. "I couldn't complete what I had dreamed of." He added: "If I had been in Germany, I would have received government support in the form of loans, and with half the money I spent I could have launched the business. Rents are extremely, extremely high, and labour costs are also high. I've gone back to square one." He holds German citizenship and plans to go back. "I will return and try to start over there," he explained. "Here I have run out of options and lost what I had built up during my stay and asylum in Europe."
Fares Ibrahim and his wife Lida returned from Sweden and opened a tailoring shop in Damascus's Shaalan district. They put $10,000 into rent and $5,000 into equipment. Six months later, they had made less than $1,000 in profit, so they were forced to close the shop. "We are now looking for premises in a rural area where the rent is lower, so we can get back on our feet," Ibrahim told European Pulse.
The wall of bureaucracy
Munir, a teacher who came back from Jordan, has spent months trying to secure a position through Syria's education ministry, but nothing has come through. "Every month I knock on the doors of the ministry or the education directorate to see whether my appointment has gone through, but in vain," Munir told European Pulse. "There is never a response, every time there's a different excuse." He has stopped waiting and taken up farming. "I have now stopped teaching and am working the land, doing farming and sowing seeds just to get by," he explained. "I have set aside my experience and years of study in Jordan, and I wish I could work in Syria instead of having to think about travelling in search of a teaching post in good schools that also pay decent salaries."
The stories from Damascus and other cities echo a broader pattern: the initial euphoria of return has given way to a sobering assessment. While some, like Mustafa, find a way to make it work, others are already planning their next departure. The challenges are not just economic—they are also psychological, as returnees grapple with a homeland that feels both familiar and foreign. For Europe, which hosted millions of Syrian refugees, the question of whether these returns are sustainable has direct implications for migration policy and bilateral relations. As the continent watches, the Syrian experiment in rebuilding after a brutal civil war remains a fragile and uncertain one.
