Hun­dreds of Syr­i­an refugees gath­ered at two bor­der cross­ings in south­ern Turkey on Mon­day, ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing their re­turn home fol­low­ing the fall of Pres­i­dent Bashar As­sad’s gov­ern­ment.

Many ar­rived at the Cil­ve­g­ozu and On­cu­pinar bor­der gates at day­break, draped in blan­kets and coats. Some camped by bor­der bar­ri­ers, warm­ing them­selves with makeshift fires or rest­ing on the cold ground. The cross­ings cor­re­spond to the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salameh gates on the Syr­i­an side of the bor­der.

Among those wait­ing at Cil­ve­g­ozu was 28-year-old Muhammed Zin, who was ex­cit­ed at the prospect of re­turn­ing home. He fled Dam­as­cus in 2016 and has been liv­ing and work­ing in Is­tan­bul.

“As­sad was shoot­ing us, killing us,” he told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press. “I will re­turn to Syr­ia now. Thank God, the war is over.”

At the On­cu­pinar bor­der gate, Mustafa Sul­tan, 29, said he was cross­ing in­to Syr­ia to find his old­er broth­er who was im­pris­oned in Dam­as­cus un­der As­sad’s rule.

“I haven’t seen him for 13 years. The pris­ons have been emp­tied so I am go­ing to go see whether he’s alive,” he said.

Re­lat­ed Sto­ries

Turk­ish of­fi­cials have not said how many Syr­i­ans have re­turned since As­sad’s down­fall. Au­thor­i­ties set up a check­point some 5 kilo­me­ters (3 miles) from Cil­ve­g­ozu, on­ly al­low­ing Syr­i­ans with prop­er doc­u­ments to the bor­der gate, Haber­Turk tele­vi­sion re­port­ed.

As­sad’s fall has sparked wide­spread joy among Turkey’s 3 mil­lion Syr­i­an refugees, with many tak­ing to the streets of Is­tan­bul and oth­er cities to cel­e­brate. On Sun­day, Syr­i­ans al­so re­moved the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment’s flag from the Syr­i­an Con­sulate in Is­tan­bul, re­plac­ing it with the op­po­si­tion’s flag.

Turkey wel­comed Syr­i­an refugees with open arms in the ear­ly years of the Syr­i­an civ­il war that broke out in 2011 — be­com­ing host to the largest num­ber of refugees in the world. Ankara be­lieved that the con­flict would end quick­ly and refugee in­flux would be tem­po­rary.

But as Turkey faced eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, pub­lic opin­ion to­ward the refugees soured, forc­ing Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan’s gov­ern­ment to seek ways to en­sure their safe and vol­un­tary repa­tri­a­tion.

Turk­ish of­fi­cials now hope that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of Syr­i­ans will re­turn vol­un­tar­i­ly.

“We will con­tin­ue our ef­forts to en­sure the safe and vol­un­tary re­turn of Syr­i­ans and to re­build the coun­try,” Turk­ish For­eign Min­is­ter Hakan Fi­dan said Mon­day.

At Cil­ve­g­ozu, some refugees wheeled their suit­cas­es while oth­ers car­ried be­long­ings in sacks.

Za­kariya Mori al-Sha­mi, 31, who ar­rived in Turkey in 2019, was wait­ing to cross the bor­der with his wife and two chil­dren to re­turn to Alep­po. He hopes to re­build his home, which was de­stroyed dur­ing the con­flict.

“We came here be­cause there was a war now the war is over and we’re go­ing back,” he said.

Anx­ious to re­join his fam­i­ly in Dam­as­cus, Mo­hammed al Muh­buhar, 27, said he head­ed to the bor­der “im­me­di­ate­ly” af­ter As­sad left.

“We are very hap­py that As­sad is gone. There is no more tor­ture. God will­ing, Syr­ia will be bet­ter,” he said.

Hun­dreds of dis­placed Syr­i­ans were al­so re­turn­ing Mon­day from Lebanon, with dozens of cars lin­ing up to en­ter. Lebanese res­i­dents on Sun­day hand­ed out con­grat­u­la­to­ry sweets to Syr­i­ans wait­ing to go back to their coun­try.

Sa­mi Ab­del-Latif, a con­struc­tion work­er and refugee from Hama who was head­ing to Syr­ia to join his wife and four chil­dren, said while the fu­ture in Syr­ia is still un­cer­tain, “any­thing is bet­ter than Bashar.” He said he ex­pect­ed some chaos ini­tial­ly but that even­tu­al­ly the sit­u­a­tion would set­tle down.

“Look at Alep­po now,” Ab­del-Latif said, re­fer­ring to the first ma­jor city tak­en over by op­po­si­tion forces more than a week ago, where life has con­tin­ued more or less as nor­mal. He said he is al­so hop­ing that there will now be plen­ti­ful work in Syr­ia to re­build.

Malak Matar, who was prepar­ing to re­turn to Dam­as­cus, said: “This is a feel­ing we’ve been wait­ing 14 years for.”

“You feel your­self psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly free — you can ex­press your­self,” he said. “The coun­try is free and the bar­ri­ers have been bro­ken down.”

Now, he said, “Syr­i­ans have to cre­ate a state that is well-or­ga­nized and takes care of their coun­try. It’s a new phase.”

Guzel re­port­ed from the On­cu­pinar bor­der cross­ing. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Suzan Fras­er in Ankara, Turkey and Robert Baden­dieck in Is­tan­bul con­tributed to this re­port.

Fol­low the AP’s Syr­ia cov­er­age at https://ap­news.com/hub/syr­ia

by Taboola

By  MU­C­AHIT CEY­LAN and MEHMET GUZEL

CIL­VE­G­OZU BOR­DER CROSS­ING, Turkey (AP)