A legacy of division: Syrians face delayed recognition of SIG documents

ALEPPO — With Assad’s fall last year, internal borders that long separated Syrians from one another faded away. For the first time in years, displaced people could choose to return home. Suddenly, it was possible to travel between provinces without fearing arrest or risking the expense and danger of smuggling routes. 

But even as new possibilities unfolded, challenges emerged—rooted in the country’s years-long division into separate zones of influence. Syria’s new rulers, most linked to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-backed government in Idlib, initially did not recognize official documents issued by the administrations of other areas.

The day after Assad fell, Syria’s now-president Ahmad al-Sharaa tasked Muhammad al-Bashir, then the head of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in Idlib, with forming an initial caretaker government. The new authorities chose to recognize official documents—such as personal identification cards—issued by the SSG or the former regime, but did not recognize those issued by the Turkey-backed Syrian Interim Government (SIG) in northern Aleppo. 

Before December 8, 2024, Syria was divided into four main areas of influence, each with its own administration and official documents. Most of the country was run by the Assad regime, while the opposition-held northwest was split between the SSG based in Idlib and the SIG in northern Aleppo. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)-controlled northeast was run by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). 

In Aleppo city last month, Ahmad Abboush, 48, set out on what should have been a straightforward errand: hooking up a landline internet connection for his mobile phone shop in the al-Shaar neighborhood. 

Abboush made his way to the Sanaa Muhaidli switching center, where an employee asked to see his ID then “refused to complete the request,” he said. He was told “your ID is from a [SIG-affiliated] local council, and can’t be accepted,” he recalled. Abboush lived in al-Bab, an SIG-run city in northern Aleppo, before returning to his native Aleppo once Assad fell. 

He went to speak with the center’s manager, hoping to bypass the obstacle, but “he shouted at me, saying these are instructions from the minister, your request cannot be accepted with your current ID,” Abboush said. There was nothing he could do. 

Some time later, the governor of Aleppo held a meeting with civil figures in Aleppo attended by around 50 people, including Abboush. He brought up the problem with his ID, and was told the issue “would be solved soon, because they were waiting on the data from Turkey,” he told Syria Direct. 

In northern Aleppo, SIG-affiliated local councils are linked administratively to Turkish provinces across the border—Gaziantep, Urfa and Kilis—with Turkish coordinators for each area reporting to the governors of those provinces. 

Read more: 12 years on, ‘revolution’ service institutions under Turkish authority 

Abboush lost his original ID card issued by the Assad regime while living in al-Bab, leaving him with only a replacement issued by the SIG-affiliated local council. “It’s like I’m carrying around a blank sheet of paper, not an ID,” he said. “Is it reasonable for people’s transactions to stop until data comes from Turkey? How long will it take?”

Abdulrazzaq Abdulrazzaq, a personal status official at the local council in al-Bab, told Syria Direct he contacted Aleppo’s governor and was told “the document issue is on the way to a solution.” However, “we have no timeline, because the file is with the Syrian and Turkish governments,” he added. 

Meanwhile, a workaround for those like Abboush who only have ID cards issued by SIG local councils is to “obtain a civil status record from the new government institutions to conduct necessary business, as a temporary solution,” Abdulrazzaq added. 

However, this option is only available for those already recorded in the civil registry. Syrians whose birth is only registered with opposition institutions cannot benefit from this stopgap solution before their existing documents are recognized. 

Abboush’s story points to the possible impact on more than two million Syrians living in SIG areas of influence, as well as in the SDF-controlled northeast, where institutions are set to merge with the central state under a landmark agreement reached last month. 

Education sector 

While more than four months have passed since the Assad regime fell, Syria’s new administration has not resolved the document crisis. The effects go beyond bureaucratic headaches and obstacles related to identification papers, extending to the education sector. 

When Assad fell last year, Sufyan al-Aaraj relocated with his family from northern Aleppo’s Azaz to the Idlib village of Deir Hassan, moving from an SIG area to an SSG area. As soon as they arrived, he tried to submit his papers to continue his education and finish high school. His brother, entering the first year of high school, tried to do the same. The principal “stipulated that we have our [SIG] middle school diplomas equivalized to be able to continue our education,” al-Aaraj told Syria Direct. 

After weeks of attempts, the brothers obtained “conditional admission in Idlib, pending a final decision,” al-Aaraj said. It came late, after first-semester exams had gone by, so he opted to go back to his old school in Azaz instead, “to avoid losing the chance to graduate this year.” He had to move away from his family and “shoulder financial, physical and psychological burdens to ensure my educational future.”

Commenting on that, Abdulhakim al-Dughaim, the principal of the Uqba bin Nafi School for Boys in Deir Hassan, said the problems with SIG educational certificates have since been partially resolved. Idlib schools are admitting “students holding SIG certificates,” but “there is a directive not to enroll ninth-grade students with their SIG IDs, and ask them to obtain new ones,” he told Syria Direct. 

That leaves students grappling with bureaucracy to obtain new documents, relying on old documents or their equivalent—a family ledger and a passport. The process can take “about a month,” several civilian sources told Syria Direct. 

Muhammad Allaq, head of the statistics department at the Idlib Education Directorate, said “the problem of admitting students coming from former SIG areas was marred by some circumstances, and is currently being resolved.” Local schools have been instructed to “immediately accept students coming from SIG areas,” except in the case of those with “documents that contain errors, which are not accepted until they are corrected, such as a document that does not contain the student’s national number.”

“Many officials justify rejecting documents due to errors,” lawyer and activist Omar al-Bassiki, who lives in the northern Aleppo city of Qabasin, responded. “Are there errors on the documents of two million people?” In his view, “they don’t want to say they are rejecting these documents outright, so they offer false justifications for rejecting them.” 

Lawyer Alaa Dadou, an expert in administrative law, explained that SIG local councils “issued ID cards with Turkish numbers because they are under the supervision of Turkish provinces close to them.” As a result, “a Syrian citizen in the north has a Turkish number, like any foreigner living in Turkey.” On that basis, “the new administration has decided not to recognize these documents.” 

An example of an identification card issued by the SIG Civil Status Directorate in the northern Aleppo city of al-Bab. It includes a “personal number” but not a “national number,” the unique identifier assigned to all Syrian citizens by the Ministry of Interior, 27/9/2023 (Civil Status Directorate)

The decision to not recognize SIG documents and unify Syrian documents was the right move, in Dadou’s view, but it also “deprived many citizens of their rights.” This extends not only to education but to other sectors, as Damascus has not recognized any judicial rulings issued in former SIG areas, he added. 

At the start of the year, the Syrian Ministry of Education put out a list of officially recognized public and private universities. It initially excluded private universities in SIG areas, before recognizing them in February. 

In March, then-Minister of Education Nazir al-Qadri issued a decision recognizing educational certificates issued by the SIG and local councils as equivalent to those issued by the ministry. 

The issue of unrecognized documents has plagued Syrians for years. In northwestern Syria, residents could freely travel between SSG and SIG areas, but needed documents issued by each government for administrative purposes. 

Read more: Idlib’s de facto authorities issue new ID cards: A ‘temporary solution’ or more chaos?

With a complex administrative landscape and conflicting information from government sources, these headaches continue in the absence of practical, comprehensive solutions, al-Bassiki said. “The problem starts with documents being refused, and develops to become a source of psychological and social pressure,” he added. 

“The current government should have facilitated citizens’ affairs by temporarily relying on their current IDs, allowing a sufficient time period to obtain new ones,” lawyer Dadou said. He urged Damascus to take “urgent administrative measures to ease the burden on impacted families and students.” 

“Citizens’ needs should not be obstructed while waiting for information to arrive from Turkey,” Dadou concluded. “The data can be verified against information the government holds once it arrives.” 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.