In Kammouneh camp in rural Idlib, Ibrahim al-Khatib, 40, pays little attention to talk of closing the camps. He has no house to return to, and no wish to relive displacement.
"If they decide to remove me by force, I won’t accept it. I’ll tell them to bring the walls down on my head, and my family’s,” the father of four said. "My only condition for leaving is compensation for my destroyed home — either they rebuild it or give me the money to do it myself."
Ibrahim is from Maarat Harma, also in rural Idlib. He now lives in a two-room prefabricated unit with poor services, but he says it is a thousand times better than pitching a tent beside his family’s ruined house.
He works now with a local association; back in the village, he would have none. The roads there are unpaved, there is no electricity or running water, only one well has been restored, and the sewage network needs repair. The government, he says, has built a clinic and a school, and nothing more.
Syria is moving to close its more than 200 displacement camps as part of a nationwide plan and return internally displaced people to their areas of origin.
According to UNHCR data, more than 3.8 million displaced Syrians have returned to their areas of origin or home countries since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024, while over 7.4 million remain internally displaced.
Raed al-Saleh, minister of emergencies and disaster management, said the aim is to close all camps by September 2027.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued Decree 59, forming a committee chaired by the emergencies ministry to deliver the 'Syria Without Camps' vision. It includes the ministries of housing, local administration, social affairs and labour, and foreign affairs and expatriates, along with the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.
The ministry’s media office told The New Arab that the committee "plans, coordinates and oversees the work needed to prepare areas of return and secure a safe, dignified and voluntary return."
It put the number of families still in camps at about 84,957 in Idlib and 56,265 in Aleppo.
Between March, when the committee began work, and the end of August, 157 camps were closed, with 220 more being prepared for closure.
Mines on the way home
Return convoys have been running for about three months. But return means more than a truck, a food basket and a few blankets and mattresses.
Landmines remain the biggest obstacle, and they are still killing people.
Demining expert Maysara Hijazi said Ministry of Defence records show mines have killed 224 people and injured 329 since the start of 2026, among them 83 children killed and 118 injured.
"Children are the main victims because they play in rubble or pick up unfamiliar objects; farmers and shepherds come next, which is why large areas of farmland cannot be worked," Maysara added.
The worst-affected areas are the former front lines in Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor and Homs, each of which has recorded more than 1,000 explosions since the end of 2024. Afrin and rural Damascus are relatively better off. These same areas sit on Syria’s map of displacement.
"Since 2025, more than 14,000 unexploded ordnance items have been safely disposed of, and 138 minefields identified in Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor and Latakia," Maysara said.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 3,799 civilians killed by landmines and cluster munition remnants between March 2011 and April 2026, including 1,000 children and 377 women, with a further 10,600 injured.
Casualties rose after the fall of the former government as displaced people returned and farming resumed, with incidents recorded while ploughing, foraging for truffles, or when children handled war remnants.
Camps left to decline
Services and aid in the camps have fallen sharply since Assad’s fall.
Mohammad Bakir, director of the northern department of social affairs and labour in Idlib, told The New Arab that 60 percent of camps have no basic services at all. In some, provision is limited to one bundle of bread per family, and only a few receive full water, sanitation and hygiene services.
As donors pull back, the government is seeking to move international and regional support from the camps to areas of return.
It has presented the UN with a plan to shift funding from humanitarian response to recovery and durable solutions: clearing mines and rubble, rehabilitating infrastructure and services, and creating jobs where people return.
Those conditions pushed Safaa Yassin al-Ali, a widow who works in the Anamel al-Taghyir volunteer team, to return recently to her hometown of Kafr Nabl, after years of her home flooding with rainwater and sometimes sewage.
She lived in the al-Madina al-Munawwara sector of the Barisha camps and has three girls.
"Life in the camp was the worst-served; it was home largely to widows who support their families alone. Water and rubbish collection now require paid subscriptions many residents cannot afford," she added.
Residents live in small, unfinished concrete units built without regard to construction standards.
"If I had stayed one more winter, the walls would have collapsed on me and my daughters," she said. "I’m afraid for those still in the camp. The tarpaulins can’t hold anymore, and neither can the walls. They stayed because their homes are destroyed, they got no help to rebuild, and some never owned a house at all."
She signed up for a return convoy through a WhatsApp announcement from the camp manager. The support covered a bus for her family, a truck for belongings, which usually costs around $100, and sheets, pillows and blankets.
Kafr Nabl is not much better. Roads are unpaved and services scarce. Her daughters walk three kilometres each way to secondary school because she cannot afford transport at $25 a month per child, and she admits she may abandon their education, especially in winter.
The family lives in a single room, all that remains of their house. "It’s enough that I’m free of the sound of rain on the tarpaulin," she said. "It was almost deafening."
Responding to complaints from returnees and those afraid to return, the ministry said the initiative draws on a database linking camp families in Aleppo and Idlib to their places of origin.
A first phase covers 120 areas in Aleppo, Idlib and Hama, rehabilitating water, sanitation, health, education and roads, funded directly by the government with contributions from humanitarian organisations.
Services vary with the scale of damage, it said, but the plan ties return to preparing areas of origin beforehand or in parallel.
Mohammad said returnees are registered and given projects where possible, and that associations repair homes for those who cannot, with widows given priority.
"Those who have no home remain in the camps and receive whatever services are available until restoration or reconstruction becomes possible," he said.
A pledge, not yet a guarantee
Al-Moutasem al-Kilani, a legal expert in human rights and international criminal law, distinguishes between commitment and delivery. The minister has pledged to restore schools, clinics and water networks, provide jobs, and not oblige families to return to destroyed villages without services.
"That is a positive commitment, but it needs guarantees and verifiable results," Al-Moutasem said.
He points to UNHCR’s first-quarter 2026 report, which documented fragile housing among returnees, missing documents, barriers to services and continuing danger from war remnants.
The report covers returnees and host communities rather than auditing the initiative, he notes, but it shows the challenges it must address.
"If the move comes before housing and services are ready, it could saddle families with rent and debt, interrupt treatment or schooling, and lead to new displacement," he added.
"Voluntariness must be real: a family’s consent is not enough without clear information and viable alternatives."
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, he said, displaced people retain rights to work, adequate housing, health and education.
The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, while not a binding treaty, require authorities to enable safe and dignified voluntary return, involve displaced people in planning, and help them recover property or receive fair compensation.
Ending displacement fairly within a year is "highly ambitious," Al-Moutasem said, and published data are not enough to say it can be done. He proposes a plan for each family based on its wishes, the state of its home, the safety of the area and its members’ needs, with three options: return, local integration or resettlement elsewhere.
"Success is measured by the number of families who have settled with dignity and been able to stay," he said, "not by the number of tents removed."
Meanwhile, under pressure to leave, many displaced families have packed up their tents and pitched them again in the villages and towns they came from, to be near their relatives and not be left alone in camps where they once shared grief and aid.
Mawada Bahah is an independent Syrian journalist with bylines in local, regional and international outlets
This article is published in collaboration with Egab
