The Return: ‘The Time Has Come’ (Photos)

AMMAN — Bushra Abu Adnan, 30, sits in her small apartment in Amman, Jordan with her husband Nidal Abu Shafeh. After 12 years in exile, they are weighing the choice to return to Syria. The couple fled to Jordan in 2013, escaping bombardment. Now, amid rising living costs and cuts in aid, they join thousands of refugees who have started to return home. 

In 2024 alone, roughly 17,200 Syrians went back from Jordan, with over 5,100 leaving in December—more than in all of 2023. This surge reflects a turning point since the fall of the Assad regime, as many families decide they cannot wait forever, even if their home has been ruined. “We’ll be given a room in my family’s house in Syria,” Bushra says.  

Bushra Abu Adnan stands with two of her children as she begins packing to return to Syria, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Bushra begins to pack, stuffing clothes, blankets and kitchen items into bags for a long, uncertain journey back to Syria. For more than a decade, she and her husband Nidal have built a life in Jordan, where many of their children were born. But with Jordan signaling a push for accelerated returns, and aid cuts making survival harder, the pressure to leave has grown. 

Today, over 200,000 vulnerable women and children remain without assistance in Jordan because 63 specialized humanitarian programs have shut down. “When we came to Jordan, we lived with my husband’s parents at first, we worked, charities helped us,” Bushra says. But the illusion of permanence is gone, replaced by a decision to try starting over. 

Two of Bushra’s children rush towards the packed bags in their Amman apartment, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Bushra and Nidal have nine children, though one died as an infant during the war. Most of their surviving children know nothing but Jordan: its classrooms, narrow lanes and neighbors who became family. “Jordan became my second country,” Bushra says.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that while 80 percent of Syrian refugees hope to return “one day,” only 27 percent plan to go within a year of the Assad regime’s fall. Most still hesitate, wary that they will return only to find destroyed homes, security concerns and fragile services. 

But for Bushra, it is time—despite the uncertainty. She is not alone: Since December 2024, more than 114,500 Syrians have voluntarily returned to their homeland from Jordan.

Bushra folds clothes while her children watch, the apartment stripped bare, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

It may have been safe here, but life has been hard. Bushra’s husband’s family supported them during exile, but her mother-in-law died four years ago, and his father and siblings have since returned to Syria, leaving her with no close family in Jordan. 

As she packs, Bushra wipes away tears, determined to lead her children into uncertainty once again, clinging to family ties as their last safety net. 

UNHCR and partners have scaled up assistance for those choosing to return, offering transportation and modest financial help. In May 2025 alone, nearly 1,000 people used UNHCR transport to go back, and in total more than 15,000 returned that month, the highest monthly return since the start of the year. 

Women and children now make up nearly half of all returnees, and Amman and Irbid remain the main departure points, accounting for over 50,000 returns. 

Packed bags and belongings sit outside the family’s Amman apartment, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

The road back to Syria is both literal and emotional for Bushra and her family. Crossing the border ends their formal refugee status, but begins a new uncertainty. The couple remember slipping into Jordan in 2013 with no documents after theirs were burned during the war. 

The UNHCR insists returns must be strictly voluntary and informed, warning against premature moves while security and services in Syria remain unstable. Jordan has not forced people to return but has streamlined exit formalities as thousands leave. “We went through everything here,” Nidal says of Jordan. “But the time has come for my family to go home, however broken we may find it.” 

Jenna, 5, stands in her family’s apartment in Amman one day before returning to Syria, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

As her family packs, Jenna, 5, one of Bushra and Nidal’s daughters, stands in the doorway of the nearly empty flat they’ve called home for years. A day later, she will leave with her mother and siblings to Syria—a country still damaged, still dangerous in places, but finally theirs. 

In some ways it is the longing for home that draws them back, but there are practical reasons too: poverty, unemployment, and the lack of a future in Jordan. Even with ruined homes and lost years, they hope to reclaim something of their lives. Nidal says he wants his children to know a home without fear. 

Nidal, Bushra and their children pose for a family picture, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

Nidal and Bushra’s family huddle on the couch for one last afternoon in Jordan, the country where the children learned to read, made friends and felt safe. But it was never meant to last. It is time to say goodbye, not only to safety but also to living in limbo—to a place that was both a temporary home and a constant reminder that they could never truly settle. 

An empty couch in Bushra and Nidal’s apartment in Amman, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

An empty room in Syria waits for Bushra and her children. Fourteen years of conflict have left Syria’s infrastructure in ruins; an estimated one-third of housing in Syria is damaged or destroyed. Her husband, Nidal, cannot even come yet—he is barred by debt from leaving Jordan. She will make the trip alone with the children. UNHCR warns about service gaps, joblessness and security risks in Syria. Bushra knows she is heading back to hardship. 

A vehicle loaded with Bushra’s family’s belongings, 9/7/2025 (Wishbox Media)

A truck waits outside to haul away the last of the possessions Bushra and her children have accumulated in Jordan: mattresses, water tanks, gas bottles, kitchen pots. They will need everything, because Syria offers little. 

By July 2025, such return movements had surged, with the majority of refugees heading to towns in southern Daraa province, as well as Homs and Reef Dimashq: the three top destinations for return. 

The rise in departures from Amman and Irbid, Jordan’s largest urban centers, reflects how returns are no longer limited to camp residents but increasingly involve families that spent years integrating into host communities. 

“I miss Syria,” says Nidal. “I miss Homs,” he adds, referring to his hometown. “We saw horrible things during the war—people dying and women giving birth while fleeing. We just want to return to the home before the war, to the home of the future.” 

This piece was produced by Wishbox Media within the framework of Qarib Media, a regional program implemented by CFI Media and funded by AFD France.