Five of the seven related families in Jihan Hamad Al-Khalaf’s extended family had been away from Syria since 2013, while the other two left in 2018. Some of their children had only faint memories of Syria, while others had never seen it.
After the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in December 2024, Al-Khalaf said their decision to leave Turkiye and return to Syria was “immediate and collective.”
She said that “conditions and pressures in Turkiye helped accelerate the” decision, according to the supplied account.