ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, during a visit to Damascus on Friday, urged the international community to provide more assistance to the Syrian government to facilitate the return of refugees and internally displaced people.

Grandi noted the day prior that more than 2 million Syrians have returned to their home country since the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December, calling the homecoming "a sign of hope amid rising regional tensions," with 600,000 of those having returned from abroad while the remainder were displaced within Syria.

The UN refugee chief noted in an X post that Friday marked World Refugee Day, writing that "Syria today is where returning Syrians — given security, opportunities and support — can finally stop being refugees."

However, while speaking to reporters in the Syrian capital on Friday, Grandi exhorted the international community “to provide more help, more assistance to the Syrian government in this big challenge of recovery of the country," noting that his agency is working closely with Syrian authorities to ensure returnees are adequately taken care of.

The Italian-born Grandi said he has discussed with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani provisions to ensure that repatriated citizens “don't move again because they don't have a house or they don't have a job or they don't have electricity."

Grandi was a strong advocate for the removal of Western sanctions on Damascus in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse, saying in January that “sanctions are an important obstacle at the moment for the return of refugees.”

The UNHCR estimates that there are still 13.5 million Syrians who are internally displaced within the country or scattered across the world.

UN estimates put Syria’s reconstruction costs at over $400 billion, with Grandi saying that he discussed how to attract donors with Shaibani in light of the large overheads.

Syrians began to flee their country in 2011 with the beginning of a civil war that saw the Assad government fight against myriad rebel groups. The ensuing bloodshed saw hundreds of thousands of deaths and countless atrocities perpetrated against Syria’s civilian population, with the conflict finally concluding in December 2024 with a successful offensive of now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group.