MADRID Jan. 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
More than 125,000 refugees have returned to Syria since the fall of Bashar al Assad’s regime a month ago, according to UN data, which also estimates that half a million internally displaced people have returned in recent weeks to the areas they abandoned in the northwest. in the face of the dazzling offensive of rebel and jihadist groups.
The highest representative of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, has stressed that those who now return to Syria do so “full of hope after years in exile”, in some cases after fleeing in the first stages of a conflict that broke out in 2011.
UNHCR, which already warned in December that up to a million refugees may return in the first half of 2025, warns of a “very dire” horizon for a large part of them. Vargas Llosa has appealed on social networks for an “urgent” mobilization, in anticipation that for many returnees “the new life in Syria will unfortunately mean sleeping surrounded by plastic tarps” in improvised camps.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 7.4 million people were living as internally displaced people as of the end of last year, 2.3 million of them in camps. Across the country, 16.7 million citizens require humanitarian assistance.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has requested this Thursday 73.2 million dollars (almost 71 million euros) to help 1.1 million people over the next six months, with a view to providing assistance to vulnerable groups such as displaced persons and returned refugees. IOM Director General Amy Pope aims to collaborate with other organizations to “build a better future for Syria” after almost 14 years of conflict.
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