The UK and other European countries have said they will suspend the processing of asylum applications from Syrians after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, with Austria already preparing a “repatriation and deportation” programme to the country.
In London, a Home Office spokesperson said it had “temporarily paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation”.
[…]
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said on Monday in a statement that the end of Assad’s “brutal tyranny” had come as a great relief to many. “Many refugees who have found protection in Germany now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland and rebuilding their country.”She said, however, that the “the situation in Syria is currently very unclear”, citing the “volatile situation” as to why the country’s federal office for migration and refugees had imposed a freeze on decisions for asylum procedures. More than 47,000 asylum applications from Syrians are pending.
Countries across Europe swiftly followed suit, even as questions continued to swirl over what comes next for Syria.
The Swedish migration agency said it would pause all decisions on Syrian asylum requests and deportations. The French government said it was also considering suspending current asylum cases and would make a decision in the coming hours.
Greece had also paused about 9,000 applications for Syrians seeking asylum, a government source told Reuters, while, Finland, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium had reportedly taken similar measures.
In Austria, the caretaker government went further, saying it had ordered a halt to the processing of asylum applications from Syrians and a review of all the cases in which asylum had been granted. Syrians rank as the largest group of asylum seekers in the country, with 12,871 applications lodged as of November this year.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
43 points (97.8% liked)
Europe
2528 readers
1446 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The headline is a bit misleading, as for most countries is is about the suspension of the processing, meaning also a suspension of deportations in case the asylum request gets denied. Its basically a wait and see move.
Which makes a lot of sense given the circumstances.
Some politicians are already calling for sending Syrians home. That makes less sense at the moment.
Hopefully it will make more sense once the situation settles.
Not if ISIS or similar takes over. In that case we can expect more refugees.
Hence "hopefully".