Syrians in Egypt celebrate fall of Assad regime but not all want to go home

While most refugees are eager to return, some want to remain in Egypt after successfully building new lives

People wait for their orders at a Syrian restaurant in the Sixth of October suburb of Cairo. Many of the businesses started by Syrian refugees in Egypt have been in the food and textile sectors. AFP

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The fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime in Syria has led to elation among the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in Egypt, with many already making plans to return home. However, after years spent in exile, others say they prefer to remain in the country where they have rebuilt their lives after fleeing the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011.

Quteiba Abdelaziz, 33, a former resident of Homs who co-owns a shawarma restaurant in the Egyptian coastal city of Rashid, said, “It is difficult to describe our happiness over the past few days. I don't think a single Syrian has been able to sleep, we were all staying up till dawn, calling each other, watching news and making plans to return home.”

Mr Abdelaziz arrived in Egypt in 2012 and has since lived and worked in more than a dozen of the country's 27 provinces, moving around to find work. He opened his restaurant in 2021 with his brother and cousin after nearly a decade of saving.

“Many in our community have already started to make their plans to depart Egypt,” Mr Abdelaziz said. “Only Syrians understand the kind of fear that we were forced to deal with under Bashar Al Assad and the terror he unleashed with the military. That was the main reason why we couldn’t return before; everyone was worried about detentions at the border. They arrest, torture and interrogate you on why you left Syria in the first place.”

According to Mr Abdelaziz, the first people expected to return are those who were living “half lives” in Egypt, either because they had left loved ones back in Syria or because they were struggling to survive, especially in light of the rise in cost of living in Egypt.

“Many of these people are on renewable tourist visas only and lack formal residency, making their decision to return easier compared to those with established businesses or student visas,” he said.

For Syrians to remain in Egypt legally, they must hold either a student or investor visa, or be an asylum seeker or a refugee registered with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Only about 150,000 of the Syrians who fled to Egypt have registered with the UN, which entitles them to certain services provided by the UNHCR and its partners, such as health care, education and psychosocial support.

Mr Abdelaziz says he will most likely live between Egypt and Syria so that he can keep his shawarma restaurant in Rashid going.

“My partners and I have been discussing the best way to keep our business open and also go home. We will probably do it on a rotation, where two of us will stay in Egypt while the other visits Syria and when he returns, one of the others can go,” he said.

Thoraya Al Halaby, 57, a mother of four whose husband died in Aleppo in 2014 during air strikes by Syrian government troops, said she would return the first chance she gets.

She says that most people in her lower-income Syrian community in Cairo’s Al Obour district, will also do the same.

“Assad is gone. He went back to hell where he came. Our country has been liberated. It is an emotion that I find difficult to describe without coming to tears,” said Ms Al Halaby, who runs a Syrian dessert stall in Al Obour. “When I first heard the news, I was frozen. I don’t own much here and my children are eager to return as well. They have their own memories of Aleppo.”

Bassem Obeid, 43, from Idlib and owner of three restaurants in Al Obour, came to Egypt in 2013 after a brief stay in Turkey. He plans to visit Syria in the coming months because he has not been back in over a decade. “I miss everything about Syria. The food, the buildings, the sea. It will always be home.”

However, he says he will most likely return to Egypt after the visit to manage his restaurants.

“We have investor visas and my children have lived here longer than they have in Syria. They want to stay in Cairo and we have made a home here. But we will visit Syria frequently and we will be at peace knowing my mother and sisters are safe in their homes with Assad gone,” Mr Obeid said.

Both Mr Obeid and Mr Abdelaziz spoke of the warm relations between Egyptians and Syrians, explaining that Syrians have had a positive impact on the Egyptian economy. “I think many Egyptians saw that we all had very difficult starts and they respected that, as a community, we built this successful network of businesses,” Mr Obeid said.

According to a 2022 report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Syrian investment in Egypt since 2011 surpassed $1 billion and there were at least 30,000 registered Syrian businesses in the country. This is far lower than the number of refugees, suggesting that moving back to Syria from Egypt would not entail a financial cost for most of them. However, Syrian experts have also warned that the return of the more than 14 million displaced by the conflict will be much more difficult than people might think.

During a round-table discussion on an Egyptian talk show on Sunday night, Bodoor Al Eryan, the former director of the Syria branch of Arab Women Union, said that while Syrians might romanticise return, the reality of what they will face when they do is sobering.

“Is it reasonable for refugees to return after a 13-year war? Where is the infrastructure? Where are the schools? Where are the hospitals? After so long at war, there is destruction everywhere. There have been many arrests. It has become a scary and empty country,” Ms Al Eryan said. “This is why we are calling on Arab countries, especially those in the Gulf, to help fund the rebuilding of Syria. The brutal regime handed over the buildings with just their walls.”