BERLIN — Germany has suspended decisions on asylum requests from Syrians amid the “unclear situation” in the war-torn country after the ouster of President Bashar Assad, the interior minister said Monday.
Germany took in almost one million Syrians, Europe’s biggest diaspora from the war-ravaged country, with the bulk arriving in 2015-16 under ex-chancellor Angela Merkel.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that “the end of the brutal tyranny of the Syrian dictator Assad is a great relief for many people who have suffered from torture, murder and terror.”
“Many refugees who have found protection in Germany now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland and rebuilding their country,” she said in a statement.
But she cautioned that “the situation in Syria is currently very unclear.”
“Therefore, concrete possibilities of return cannot yet be predicted at the moment and it would be unprofessional to speculate about them in such a volatile situation.”
“In view of this unclear situation, it is right that the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has today imposed a freeze on decisions for asylum procedures that are still ongoing until the situation is clearer,” she said.
The interior ministry says there are now 974,136 people with Syrian nationality residing in Germany.
Of these, 5,090 have been recognized as eligible for asylum, 321,444 have been granted refugee status and 329,242 have been granted subsidiary protection, a temporary stay of deportation, with tens of thousands of other cases still pending.
Foreign ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer on Monday highlighted the changing events and ongoing fighting in Syria.
“The fact that the Assad regime has been ended is unfortunately no guarantee of peaceful development,” he told a regular media briefing.
“Whether this new situation will result in new refugee movements or whether, on the contrary, if the situation stabilizes, displaced persons and refugees will have the opportunity to return to their homeland in the long term, remains to be seen,” Fischer said.
AN-AFP, Dec 9, 2024
