People walk down a street at the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees, near the Jordanian city of Mafraq, about 80Km north of the capital Amman on January 13, 2025. Photo: AFP / KHALIL MAZRAAWI
It is estimated that more than a million Syrian refugees have returned home since the fall of the Assad regime nearly a year ago.
For many it has been a difficult decision to leave life in refugee camps and return to the unknown, a country badly scarred by war.
Aotearoa NZ chairperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Tim Mahood, is just back from one such camp, the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.
He told RNZ's World Watch that while many Syrians have left, the situation in the camp for those remaining is extremely difficult.
Mahood said the Zaatari camp's population is down to 45,000 from 55,000, but there is just one doctor at any given time.
''If that doctor has to transport someone to the local hospital, then there's just no doctor on duty.''
He said the situation is quite dire.
"But the one thing that struck me is how positive everyone is there."
Mahood said those who have returned to Syria, or are thinking about it, face serious issues.
Tim Mahood at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Photo: Supplied / Aotearoa NZ for UNHCR
"It depends on who you believe. Syria is now apparently stable so people can go home, but there's been a civil war raging there for over a decade. There are large parts of it that have been absolutely destroyed and large swathes of the country resemble Gaza.
"So people going back there are going back to potentially no home."
Mahood said buildings have been destroyed, so as well as no home, they are facing no services, education and an uncertain future.
He said most of the Syrian refugees want to go home, but there is not a lot of infrastructure there.
If they decide to go, it is a one way ticket and UNHCR supports their transition home.
"The problem is that if they go home they find that their family is struggling and effectively they have no home to go to."
Mahood said once the refugees go home they lose their refugee status and they cannot come back.
"It's a catch-22. Do you go in circumstances or do you stay and have perpetually this sinking lid of support available within Jordan?"
Mahood said even with less funding for UNHCR, much can still be done for the refugees.
"There are people around the world who really need your help and are so much worse off than people in New Zealand.''
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