Europe freezes Syrian asylum cases as Damascus changes hands
European nations hit pause on Syrian refugee applications after rebels take Damascus and **Bashar al-Assad** escapes to Russia. The move affects over 124‚000 asylum-seekers who applied this year
After rebels seized Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia this winter‚ European countries made a quick-response to pause Syrian asylum applications (marking the end of a 13-yr civil conflict)
The wave of policy changes started on dec-10 when Austriaʼs govt announced its plan to stop processing cases; theyʼre also getting ready for a re-think of their deportation rules. Other nations quickly followed suit:
- Belgium temporary hold on case reviews
- Britain paused all decisions
- Denmark extended stay permits for rejected cases
- Finland froze 350 pending applications
- Netherlands put a 6-month hold on newer cases
- Greece stopped processing 9‚000 applications
- Germany halted all Syrian nationals cases
The immigration offices across EU got more than 124k asylum requests from jan to oct this year — these numbers show how big this issue is. Most countries say they need time to check whats happening in Syria before making new decisions; some are looking at ways to send people back
The quick policy shift happened because nobody knows if its safe to return to Syria now: European govts dont want to make wrong choices about peoples safety. Swiss‚ Swedish and Norwegian officials also joined the pause – saying they cant judge the protection needs right now
