EU updates asylum guidance for Syrians a year after Assad's fall

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BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday issued updated guidance for asylum applications by Syrian nationals that reflects new conditions in Syria a year after the fall of the Bashar Assad. The changes may influence the result of asylum requests of some 110,000 Syrians who were still awaiting an asylum decision at the end of September.

The European Union Agency for Asylum said opponents of Assad and military service evaders “are no longer at risk of persecution."

But the agency said other groups may be considered at risk in the post-Assad Syria, including people affiliated with the former government and members of the Alawites, Christians, and Druze ethnic-religious groups.

While decisions on asylum applications are made at a national level, the agency's guidance is used to inform the 27 EU member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland. The goal is to create greater coherence between the 29 nations granting international protection.

The number of Syrians requesting asylum dropped significantly from 16,000 in October 2024, before the fall of Assad, to 3,500 in September 2025. Still, Syrians had the most number of cases awaiting a decision at first instance.

Syria’s conflict that began in March 2011 killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. More than 5 million Syrians fled the country as refugees. While most sought refuge in neighboring countries like Turkey, many also went to Europe, contributing to the continent's refugee crisis in 2015.

Between 2012 and June 2025, EU member states plus Norway and Switzerland granted refugee status to around 704,900 applicants from Syria in first instance decisions, according to the European asylum agency.

The EUAA said the situation in Syria is “considered improved but volatile" since Assad's fall in December 2024, and that “indiscriminate violence continues to take place" in certain parts of Syria.

Many Syrians had high hopes after Assad was brought down in an offensive by insurgent groups in early December. However, sectarian killings against members of Assad’s Alawite minority sect in Syria’s coastal region and against the Druze minority in the southern province of Sweida earlier this year has claimed hundreds of lives.

Still, the agency said it now considers Damascus, the capital, to be safe.

The agency also cited two other groups living in Syria who should remain eligible for refugee status: LGBTQ+ people and Palestinians in Syria who no longer receive United Nations assistance or protection.

Since the fall of Assad in December, more than one million people have returned to Syria and nearly 2 million internally people have returned to their regions, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

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