Syrians in Germany split over staying or returning to homeland

More than a year after Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa ousted dictator Bashed al-Assad, Syrians who took refuge in Germany are wondering whether they should return home.

Syrian restaurant owner Malakeh Jazmati says she urged Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, during his inaugural visit to Berlin at the end of March to strengthen women in Syria.

Jazmati, 39, who owns the Berlin restaurant Malakeh, became known in the Arab world as a TV cook. She met the former rebel leader at a hotel during his visit to the German capital for a meal of traditional Syrian dishes she prepared.

Women in Syria must be better supported, Jazmati says she told the interim president, who was head of the Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which toppled long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024.

Al-Sharaa, 43, then raised the patriarchal structure of Syrian society several times, she says but she hopes to change that by establishing an organization in Syria to promote equality and provide more access to education for women.

Jazmati arrived, like hundreds of thousands of her compatriots, in Germany as a refugee in 2015.

Ten years later, former chancellor Angela Merkel sat down in Jazmati's restaurant when Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) produced a discussion there. It was about taking stock of Merkel's much-discussed sentence: "We can do it."

Return? "Syria needs us now"

The restaurateur is one of more than 900,000 Syrians now living in Germany.

"We must return to Syria to rebuild our country," she says. Many of her compatriots have managed a fresh start in Germany. She recently travelled to Damascus for the sixth time to help with reconstruction by offering training for hotel staff.

Syria now needs their helping hands. But not everyone can return because many parts of the country are still destroyed, she says. Otherwise, they would have to live in tents. "We must proceed step by step."

Not all the problems have to do with the war-torn infrastructure, she notes. Civil servants who worked in ministries under the al-Assad regime are sometimes uncooperative, Jazmati says. "I asked al-Sharaa to put a stop to that."

What is needed is investments by large companies, higher incomes and fewer price increases, she notes, adding that once Syria has been rebuilt, many will want to return without being asked.

Fans of her Malakeh restaurant in the city's Schöneberg district need not worry, though. Her business already runs without her presence and will remain open.

Doctor: "My father was shot in the house"

For Berlin neurologist Tameem Alhammoud, by contrast, a lack of security is a big problem in Syria. Alhammoud, a native of the Syrian village of Thaala, in the predominantly Druze province of Suweida in southern Syria, is now a German citizen.

The 39-year-old's family is Druze and his parents' house was destroyed and his 75-year-old father was killed with a shot to the head by government troops in his own home in July 2025 when the village was stormed by Assad's forces. Alhammoud says he was unable to sleep for days after hearing of his father's murder.

After the fall of the al-Assad regime in December 2024, Syria repeatedly saw waves of violence with hundreds of dead, affecting minorities such as Alawites and Druze.

At the beginning of the year there was heavy fighting between government troops and Kurdish-dominated forces. Experts also warn of a resurgence of the Islamic State terrorist organization.

"Naive" Western policy or new hope?

"It cannot be that a man who was a jihadist for years is the right man for the transition," the neurologist says of al-Sharaa.

In his view, German, US and European policy is naive because it relies too heavily on a central government. It makes him angry that human rights and in particular women's rights are receiving so little attention.

These are values that Europe stands for and for which many people seek refuge there, he says.

On the other hand, restaurateur Jazmati is not worried about the future of minorities such as the Druze or the Kurds.

Some of her relatives in Syria belonged to the Christian minority, and others, like herself, to the majority Sunni Muslim population.

"Our goal must be to overcome all problems between us Syrians. Syria as a whole must come first in future," she says. Calm and visibly moved, she speaks about her extended family in Syria.

"It is more than a dream because I thought the Assad regime would last forever. Now everything is easy. If I miss them, I can simply fly over."

For Alhammoud, it is terrible not to be able to visit his family. His mother, sisters and nieces still live in Syria. He says the only thing he can do right now is support them financially.

"They are suffering because of the fear," he says. His niece lost her place studying architecture because she belongs to the Druze minority, he notes.

The gradual radicalization in Syria is worrying, he says, adding that it also means the necessary security for investors is lacking.

While he acknowledges the heated debate among Syrians in Germany about whether to return, for him - and the Druze he knows in Berlin - that is not an option. No one dares to go back to Syria, he states.

Instead, they support their home provinces through an association from Germany. "I want to have a secure future in Germany," he says. And that includes combating radicalism.