Some 1,337 Syrians living in Germany have gone back to Syria through voluntary official programs since President Bashar Assad was deposed in December last year, the German Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

The data was collected until the end of July. Research by public broadcaster ARD found that the total number of Syrians who had returned, including those not going through official means, was closer to 4,000.

More than 1 million Syrians, many of whom fled their homeland during the bloody civil war, live in Germany.

The announcement came as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — who has made reducing immigration and increasing deportations a main focus of his government — marked his first 100 days in office.

Germany encourages Syrians to return to their home country

The German government suspended processing asylum applications for Syrians, except in certain individual cases, in December.

Other applications have been put on ice while the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) continues to assess what was a "very volatile" security situation in Syria, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry said.

At the same time, the German government has been encouraging Syrians to leave Germany of their own free will.

A spokesperson for BAMF told DW that the agency "has been organising voluntary returns to Syria since January 13, 2025, as part of the federal-state program [Reintegration and Emigration Program for Asylum-Seekers in Germany/ Government Assisted Repatriation Program]," adding that the 1,337 number referred only to these programs.

The spokesperson added that several German states were also running their own repatriation programs, but the federal government did not have access to the data for these programs.

In April, the Interior Ministry said it would allow Syrian refugees to visit their home country for short periods without fear of losing their protected status. A ministry spokesperson said that the aim was to enable Syrians to make the decision to return to Syria voluntarily.

"To do this, people from Syria must be able to see for themselves — for example, whether [their] houses are still standing, whether their relatives are still alive and so on,"  they said in April.

German interior minister pushing for deportations

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, however, is continuing to work toward the deportation of Syrians, his ministry said.

As with the recent renewed deportation of people to Afghanistan, the ministry said it would start by targeting convicted criminals.

However, the coalition government is also considering compelling people from Syria to return to their home country due to the change in the situation there.

"We are working on organizing additional deportation flights to Afghanistan and also to Syria," Dobrindt said last week.

The push for deportations to Afghanistan and Syria has come under fire due to the continued precariousness of the security situation in those countries.

Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko

Editor's note, 14.08.2025: This story has been updated to clarify that the 1,337 number refers to those who left Germany through official programs.