Figures by the Presidency of Migration Management of the Interior Ministry indicate that Türkiye now hosts fewer Syrian refugees, though they still make up the largest refugee community in the country.
In the past few years, the number of Syrians under “temporary protection” decreased by 25.8% or roughly a quarter, according to the figures compiled and published by Anadolu Agency (AA) on Saturday.
By the end of 2020, or about nine years after an unrest escalated into an all-out civil war in Türkiye’s southern neighbor, the number of Syrian refugees reached more than 3.6 million. The latest figures, from June 5, show that the number is slightly over 2.6 million people.
Figures also show Istanbul, as well as Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa, located near the border with Syria, host the largest number of Syrian refugees. Istanbul, which attracted migrants throughout its history, has also embraced refugees from around the world escaping hardships. The city now has more than 469,000 Syrian refugees. Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa have more than 377,000 and 235,812 refugees, respectively. Kilis, another southern province bordering Syria, has the highest number of refugees in proportion to its population. Refugees comprise more than 26% of the total population there.
Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz announced last week that more than 273,000 Syrian refugees left Türkiye for their homes after the collapse of the Assad regime last December. Overall, more than 1.1 million Syrians have departed since 2016. Türkiye has been home to millions from its southern neighbor as the Assad regime escalated attacks on the opposition and the country’s civil war dragged on. At one point, it was home to the largest Syrian refugee community in the world.
The country’s border crossings with Syria teemed with refugees within days of the fall of Damascus, the last bastion of Baathist resistance, with families rushing to return home after years of civil war. Ankara mobilized its border crossings when Syrians spontaneously streamed toward the border, which had been occasionally shut during the civil war, and streamlined the procedures for returnees.
Syria's civil war killed over half a million people and left the country in desperate need of reconstruction. Western sanctions imposed on Assad were recently lifted, paving the way for a potential recovery.
The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes worldwide has dropped slightly from a record high but remains "untenably high," the United Nations said earlier this month.
A record 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes at the end of 2024, said UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency.
But that figure dropped to 122.1 million by the end of April this year, as Syrians began returning home after years of turmoil.
Nearly 2 million Syrians have been able to return home from abroad or from displacement within the war-ravaged country.
The report said the first months of this year saw rising numbers of Syrians returning home.
As of mid-May, more than 500,000 Syrians are estimated to have crossed back into the country since the fall of Assad, while an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their areas of origin since the end of November.
The UNHCR estimates that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and 2 million IDPs may return by the end of 2025. The UNHCR report says that Türkiye follows Iran with the highest number of refugees, 2.9 million people.
