Since the Dec. 8 end of the Baathist regime in Syria, the number of people heading home from Türkiye has neared 300,000. As schools were closed in Türkiye, more families whose children attended Turkish schools left for their country. Daily crossings from the Turkish border surpassed 2,500, according to official figures quoted by Sabah newspaper on Saturday, indicating the trend will continue this summer.

Türkiye has been home to millions of Syrian refugees since the civil war broke out in that country in 2011. When the Assad regime collapsed due to an opposition push last December, refugees started eyeing quick returns. Türkiye eased restrictions on its border crossings with its southern neighbor after the fall of the regime, but the number of returnees fluctuated between 1,300 and 1,400 people daily initially.

Authorities were expecting a climb in returns when the schools started summer recess in June, and projections proved true. After June 20, daily crossings reached 2,500. At one point, numbers receded due to the Iran-Israel conflict that threatened to push the region into another episode of turmoil, but following a fragile cease-fire between the two countries, crossings increased again. The border gates have a capacity allowing the crossing of 3,000 people daily as they undergo comprehensive checks before traveling into Syria.

Türkiye expects more Syrians will return home in the coming months, near the end of summer, with the return of Syrians working as seasonal laborers in fields and orchards across Türkiye, from Mersin and Antalya to provinces of Burdur and Isparta.

The number of those returning to Syria from Türkiye surpassed 1 million when the number of those relocating to areas liberated from terrorists by Türkiye’s Operation Olive Branch in northern Syria in 2018 is added. Türkiye still hosts around 2.6 million Syrian refugees.

U.N. refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi has urged more international support for Syria to speed up reconstruction and enable further refugee returns.

"I am here also to really make an appeal to the international community to provide more help, more assistance to the Syrian government in this big challenge of recovery of the country," Grandi told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of a visit to Damascus.

The wide-scale destruction, including to basic infrastructure, remains a major barrier to returns.

Grandi said over 2 million people had returned to their areas of origin, including around 1.5 million internally displaced people, while some 600,000 others have come back from neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and Türkiye.

"Two million, of course, is only a fraction of the very big number of Syrian refugees and displaced, but it is a very big figure," he said.

According to UNHCR, some 13.5 million Syrians remain displaced internally or abroad.

Syria's conflict displaced around half the prewar population, with many internally displaced people seeking refuge in camps in the northwest.

Grandi said that after Assad's toppling, the main obstacle to returns was "a lack of services, lack of housing, lack of work," adding that his agency was working with Syrian authorities and governments in the region "to help people go back."

He said he discussed the importance of the sustainability of returns with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, including ensuring "that people don't move again because they don't have a house or they don't have a job or they don't have electricity" or other services such as health.

Sustainable returns "can only happen if there is recovery, reconstruction in Syria, not just for the returnees, for all Syrians," he said.

He added that he also discussed with Shaibani how to "encourage donors to give more resources for this sustainability."

With the recent lifting of Western sanctions, the new Syrian authorities hope for international support to launch reconstruction, which the U.N. estimates could cost more than $400 billion.