‘Bashar al Assad is the refugee now, that’s the irony. He is the last Syrian refugee’: Syrians in Ireland ponder potential return home

“I don’t know what the future holds for us or Syria, but I love that it is actually an option for our family to live there at some point now, something I didn’t think would happen in my lifetime,” says Rayda Almehdi.

The fall of the Assad regime remains “surreal”, days after former president Bashar al-Assad fled the country, she says.

Since then, millions of Syrians displaced internally and internationally are faced with the reality that they may be able to return, though a dilemma presents itself in that many have established lives elsewhere.

Some in Ireland have already gone back to the land they fled years ago, not able to wait any longer while others mull over what the ousting of the Assad regime might mean, now faced with the “confusing” option to return to Syria, something they believed to be impossible before.

That regime was all Almehdi, who lives in Dublin, had “ever known” andshe recalls believing, when growing up, that the Assad family “is forever”.

The 34-year-old from Damascus previously worked in the humanitarian field in Syria, during which she “witnessed more destruction than I ever thought possible”.

She struggles to fathom that she can now speak her mind and “criticise” the former regime without fear for herself or family, including her parents, back in Syria.

It is a “strange, liberating feeling” that she never thought she would experience, though one that thousands of people “paid a price for”.

Her parents, meanwhile, remain in “disbelief” and are happy yet “anxious about what’s to come”.

Although she has been able to visit them in Syria since leaving, having moved abroad not as an asylum seeker but with her husband for work, this meant she had to be “extra careful” with what she said about Assad’s regime, particularly online.

Looking ahead, and after the Assad regime’s five-decade-long stranglehold on the country, “it will realistically take the same amount of time to reclaim some of what has been lost,” she says.

“I’m cautiously optimistic. I don’t expect miracles, although the speedy fall of Assad is nothing short of one, but I’m hopeful that there is something better on the horizon for Syria.”

Alongside embracing the option of potentially moving back to Syria, she is now “anxiously awaiting” the reopening of Damascus airport in the hope of bringing her children to visit their grandparents next year.

Also based in Dublin is Ghaith Shaal. When he was 14 years old, his friend Ahmed, also 14, was arrested in Damascus for taking part in an anti-Assad protest. Ahmed disappeared, never to be heard from again, and Shaal lost all hope of reuniting with his friend.

Twelve years later, the Irish-Syrian software engineer says this hope has returned.

“Since Sunday I’ve been studying all the prison lists, looking for the names of my friends who were forcibly disappeared,” he says, adding: “Part of me wished he was dead, I didn’t want him to endure torture. But now the hope is enlightened in me again.”

Now an Irish citizen, Shaal was 17 years old when he came here through the State’s Syrian Humanitarian Admission Programme in 2015.

His parents, sister and brother arrived two years later through family reunification, all of whom gathered together and watched in disbelief as news emerged that the Assad family’s brutal 50-year reign had come to an end last weekend.

“It’s like a nightmare and we’ve finally woken up,” he says.

Caught up in the excitement of the news, Shaal’s father immediately booked a flight to Beirut and left Dublin on Monday. He arrived in Damascus on Wednesday night.

“I tried to talk him out of it, but my dad was absolutely buzzing, he said: ‘I’m not going to wait.’ I’ll book a flight back to Dublin for him next week.

“I’m planning a visit now too. I left as a young boy, I’ll be going back as a semi-old man,” says the 27-year-old with a laugh.

“I want to see my family, the kids who were born while I was away. I just want to visit. I want to see Syria. It’s the trip I never imagined I would take, I thought we’d be in exile for the rest of our lives.

“We’re no longer refugees. Bashar al-Assad is the refugee now, that’s the irony. He is the last Syrian refugee.”

Rafea Marouf, meanwhile, a 38-year-old from Jableh, a city on the coast of Syria, came to Ireland in 2020 through a humanitarian admission programme, the journey of which was a challenge, he says, but also a “chance to restart my life”.

He never believed he could return to Syria until now, though it remains too soon to do so, he says.

“While Ireland is home now, I deeply wish to visit Syria but it is too early to say that it is safe to visit. There are deep wounds in the Syrian society that will take a long time to heal, but if whoever in power does not treat those wounds in the correct way they will remain and the cycle of revenge will never end.”

Mr Marouf says he is concerned that asylum applications made by Syrians have been paused in Ireland and abroad “because the reports coming from inside don’t sound safe” while overall, the humanitarian crisis in his home country, he says, remains “disastrous”.

The fall of Assad is just the start, he says, adding he hopes the Syrian people will be able to “rebuild”.

Similarly, when Rawan al-Masri and her husband bought their first house together in Portlaoise, shortly before they got married, they never imagined the day would come when they could return to their place of birth.

“It’s so confusing, we never thought Syria would be free one day, that we could go back freely and call it home again. Here in Ireland we have a home, we bought our house, we built it from scratch.

“It’s been a revolution of emotions over the past week,” she says.

The Trinity College Dublin PhD candidate who is close to completing her research into breast cancer treatment left Syria with her parents and siblings in 2011. The family formed part of the first group of Syrian refugees to travel to Ireland in 2014 under the State’s refugee resettlement programme.

She met her husband Mohammad, who also fled Syria with his family, in Ireland.

Al-Masri has not been back to Syria since 2011 – she participated in the Arab Spring anti-government protests and says she would be arrested and go straight to prison under the Assad regime. Before last weekend, she imagined building a life and career in Ireland and dreamed of having her own research lab in Dublin. She loves her work but feels a strong urge to see her home.

“I’m thinking about how I can go back and see my childhood house. I can meet my extended family. I can see the land I grew up in, the place where we demanded freedom.

“I work with multinationals in my office – Indians, Portuguese, Mexican – and they always talk about going home during their holidays. And now I can say that too: I can go back home for a couple of weeks and then come back here, to my other home.”