Syrians in Egypt are ‘desperate’ to go back home

Members of the sprawling Syrian community in Egypt have gaily celebrated the downfall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, hoping this new development in Syria’s uprising would open the door for their return home.

Soon after hearing news of Assad fleeing his country on 8 December, the members of this community, most of them refugees who started arriving here soon after the eruption of the Syrian uprising in 2011, went on a spree on the streets.

Syrian restaurants distributed free food, drinks and desserts to passers-by, while ordinary Syrians took to social media to celebrate what they described as the “liberation” of their country from the claws of the Assad regime which had ruled their country for almost five decades, turning it into an open-air prison.

“Assad was the scourge that caused Syria to suffer for so long,” Mohamed Sabagh, a Syrian refugee in his mid-50s, told The New Arab.

“Elation is in fact an understatement of what I feel towards his downfall,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians settled in Egypt after the eruption of the Syrian uprising that morphed into a civil war. Syrian community leaders estimate the number of Syrian nationals living in the country at 800,000.

Nevertheless, only 153,000 of these Syrians are registered with the United Nations refugee agency.

In nesting here, these Syrians joined millions of other refugees from other countries.

The Egyptian government estimates these refugees at 9 million, almost 8.7 percent of the population of 106 million, which makes Egypt one of the largest refugee receiving nations in the region.

Successful model

Like all other refugees, the Syrians do not live in camps or places designated for them by Egyptian authorities.

They live in different Egyptian cities among Egyptians, slicing a portion of their country’s limited resources and sharing with them the poorly-funded educational, health and transport services extended to them by their government.

Nevertheless, over time, the Syrians nestled closely in some parts of Egyptian cities, turning these parts into Syrian colonies or enclaves where the scents of Syria, its dialect, and culinary culture ooze, contributing to Egypt’s diversity and enriching the Egyptian culture.

The Syrians have also established their own successful business models, becoming the order of the day in some trades and businesses, posing fierce competition to Egyptians, and sometimes provoking the envy of their Egyptian peers and rivals.

Some estimates put the investments poured by the Syrians who fled the war back in their country and settled here at over $500 million. In 2022, around 6,000 Syrian businesses were officially registered with the Egyptian Board of Investment.

“These investments have benefited the Egyptian economy greatly,” Rakan Abulkheir, a Syrian community leader in Egypt, told TNA.

“The Syrians brought in expertise, boosted the Egyptian economy and created jobs for the Egyptians and the Syrians,” he added.

Apart from sweeping the food sector, the Syrians invested in a wide range of other sectors of the Egyptian economy, including manufacturing, trade, tourism, textiles and pharmaceuticals.

Undefeatable longing

Despite these successes, some of these Syrians said they would soon pack up to go back home.

Abulkheir said more and more people, especially those who are confident that their homes and their family homes in Syria are still intact, tell him that they have already taken the decision to return home to make a new beginning in their country, now that the spectre of Assad’s rule does not hover over Syria any more.

Sabagh, the Syrian refugee in his mid-50s, has made a career here since he arrived in late 2012, leaving violence and bloodshed behind.

Hailing from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, he used to work as a farmer, having owned his own farm.

When he came here, he could not pursue the same profession, but had to shift to the food industry, having found a job at a Syrian restaurant after staying jobless for several months.

Sabagh is now a master chef, having become proficient in making Syrian cuisine, such as kibbeh, shawarma and stuffed squash, among many other dishes.

He had never hoped to leave Syria, but had to after violence reached a level he could not cope with.

“There was death everywhere, with the regime using all weapons in its disposal to kill the people,” Sabagh said. “I felt scared for my five children and my wife, which was why I had to leave.”

He arrived in Egypt through Lebanon, but now feels an irresistible urge to return to his country.

“I long to return home, even as most of my relatives and friends were killed by Assad and in the violence that enveloped Syria in these past years,” Sabagh said.

Cautious welcome

Ordinary Egyptians closely watched Assad as his dying regime made its last gasp in the face of the advance of opposition forces towards the Syrian capital of Damascus.

On Egypt’s streets, few Egyptians find convincing reasons for the euphoria accompanying Assad’s downfall among the members of the Syrian community here, amid fears that this development would augur an uncertain future for the fellow Arab country, one full of fighting among the forces making up the opposition coalition that brought Assad down.

“You’re celebrating now, but I’m afraid you’ll cry tomorrow,” a well-dressed Egyptian yelled at the Syrian owner of a nut shop in 6 October City, an urban community where thousands of Syrian refugees live, around 40 kilometres northwest of the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

“The forces that have captured Syria will fight against each other in the future,” the man added, before leaving.

Egypt’s pro-government media has not welcomed Assad’s downfall either, having hosted political analysts who mostly viewed the developments taking place in Syria as an ill omen for Arab security.

In Egypt’s deep strategic thinking, Syria is usually viewed as an integral part of Egyptian security.

Egypt and Syria nurtured political unity aspirations for long in the past, one that materialized only in 1958. However, this unity proved to be short-lived and came to an end in 1961.

A few days after opposition forces overran Aleppo, Egypt expressed support for Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and legitimate institutions.

After Assad’s downfall, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry called for Syria’s unity and reconstruction.

Aspirations and fears

Even with this lack of enthusiasm among most Egyptians for Assad’s overthrow, the Syrians living in the country view the same event as an enormous shift in their lives.

Some of these Syrians were born here and had never seen their parents’ home country, including two of Reham Abdurrahman’s children.

When she arrived here in early 2013, Abdurrahman accompanied her eldest child and had to leave her husband, who could not make it out of Syria, behind.

Her husband joined her and her son here in Egypt only three years later and both have been working in making Syrian desserts at home and selling them on the streets in Cairo where they live to make ends meet since then.

Abdurrahman, from the west-central city of Hama, bore witness to the death of some of her family members, including her brother, in Syrian army air raids.

“Death was lurking everywhere,” Abdurrahman told TNA. “I couldn’t stay, even as my journey to safety in Egypt was far from smooth or easy.”

Abdurrahman hopes she can raise her children, one of them is 15, the other is six and the third is three, in her home country.

Nonetheless, she shudders at the prospect of the downfall of the Assad regime opening the door for lawlessness and violence.

“I’m desperate to go back home, but I am afraid that I will face the same conditions that caused me to leave in 2013,” Abdurrahman said.

“This will put me face to face with the thing that I have been escaping from all those years: unjustly dying,” she added.