BERLIN (Dispatches) – More than 100,000 Syrian lives remain on hold after the UK and several European countries paused asylum claims following the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Many of the countries, including Germany which has the largest Syrian population outside of West Asia, froze applications days after the rebel takeover of Damascus in December 2024.
In the months that have followed, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was named Syria’s transitional chief and an interim constitution with a five-year plan was signed.
The situation is also turbulent. The Zionist regime has repeatedly targeted Syria with hundreds of airstrikes and seized parts of the Golan Heights. Violence has erupted in recent weeks which has not been fully contained.
International sanctions against Syria too are still largely in place, although on Thursday the UK lifted sanctions on Syria’s defense and interior ministries and a range of its intelligence agencies.
HTS, however, remains a designated terrorist organization by the UK, the UN, and other European countries.
Syrian advocates and asylum seekers warn that it is not safe to return to the country, but they have little clarity about when - or if - the application processes may resume.
“How could Syria be any better while it’s still under sanctions?” said Abdulaziz Almashi, founder of the UK-based Syria Solidarity Campaign, which has been fielding calls from Syrians looking for help.
Salma and her husband were anticipating a decision from the British Home Office in December 2024, a year after they had applied for asylum in the UK.
But before they heard back, the unexpected happened: the rebels took Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled.
Salma and her husband left Syria during the war. They travelled to Turkey, where they lived together for nearly three years.
In February 2023, they were living in southeastern Turkey when a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck killing more than 50,000 people across Turkey and Syria.
Afterwards, she and her husband relocated to the UK where they were hopeful about starting a new, stable, and safe life.
But these hopes faded after the Home Office announced it was freezing Syrian asylum applications on December 9. 
“When the decision was made, I felt I was slapped in the face. It took me back to the moment of the earthquake,” Salma said.
The couple are among 7,000 Syrians waiting on a decision about their paused asylum applications, impacting their right to work, rent and study in the UK.
Like the UK, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Greece and Sweden also immediately suspended the processing of Syrian’s asylum applications in the wake of Assad’s toppling.
It is unclear exactly how many Syrian asylum applications have been impacted across EU countries by these decisions, but the UN Refugee Agency has put the figure at over 100,000.
In Germany, more than 47,270 applications alone were affected.