Members of the Syrian community wave Syrian revolution flags on Dec. 8, 2024 in Berlin, Germany, and celebrate the end of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's rule after rebel fighters took control of the Syrian capital Damascus overnight. (Credit: Frank Zeller/AFP)
Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has put all asylum applications from Syrian nationals on hold until further notice after the toppling Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
Asylum requests will be not be processed until there is more clarity on political developments in the country, which is just emerging from a 13-year civil war, the spokesperson said.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that "the end of the brutal tyranny of the Syrian dictator Assad is a great relief for many people who have suffered from torture, murder and terror."
"Many refugees who have found protection in Germany now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland and rebuilding their country," she said in a statement.
But she cautioned that "the situation in Syria is currently very unclear."
"Therefore, concrete possibilities of return cannot yet be predicted at the moment and it would be unprofessional to speculate about them in such a volatile situation."
"In view of this unclear situation, it is right that the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has today imposed a freeze on decisions for asylum procedures that are still ongoing until the situation is clearer," she said.
The interior ministry says there are now 974,136 people with Syrian nationality residing in Germany, with the majority having come as refugees following former Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 to allow over a million asylum seekers to enter Germany.
Of these, 5,090 have been recognized as eligible for asylum, 321,444 have been granted refugee status and 329,242 have been granted subsidiary protection, a temporary stay of deportation, with tens of thousands of other cases still pending.
Syria was the top country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany this year, with 72,420 asylum applications submitted by the end of November, BAMF data shows. Some 47,270 asylum applications from Syrians remain undecided.
The decision comes ahead of snap elections set for February. Far-right and conservative parties are topping the polls, and Germans view migration as the second biggest problem their country faces, a poll by Infratest showed on Friday.
The head Bavaria's conservatives, Markus Soeder, on Monday referred to the BAMF suspension as "the right decision."
"We even have to consider how a greater number of people can be repatriated to their Syrian homeland," he said in a news conference.