More than 7,600 Syrians returned via Turkish border in five days after al-Assad’s fall

More than 7,600 Syrian migrants crossed the Turkish border to return home in the five days after the fall of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, Turkey’s interior minister said Sunday.

In a statement on X, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya listed the total number of Syrians “who returned voluntarily from Turkey” each day between December 9 and 13, with the five-day figure totaling 7,621 migrants.

Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled Syria after the start of the civil war in 2011, with the fall of al-Assad raising hopes many would return home.

Early on Monday, AFP correspondents saw hundreds of refugees massing at the Cilvegozu border crossing some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, with interior ministry figures showing 1,259 crossed that day.

Another 1,669 crossed on Tuesday, 1,293 on Wednesday, 1,553 on Thursday and 1,847 on Friday, Yerlikaya said.

Within 48 hours of al-Assad’s fall, Turkey had increased its daily crossing capacity from 3,000 to between 15,000 to 20,000, Yerlikaya said earlier this week.

Turkey shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria with five operational crossings, and has said it would open a sixth in the far west to “ease the traffic.”

With anti-Syrian sentiment running high within Turkish society, Ankara is keen to see as many refugees as possible return to their homeland.

Around 1.24 million -- some 42 percent -- of them hail from the Aleppo region, the interior ministry has said.