ALEPPO, Syria — Although the Nassib-Jaber border crossing between Syria and Jordan opened Oct. 15, 2018, the number of Syrian refugees returning home from Jordan remains low. This has sparked questions about the reasons preventing their return to their hometowns in southern Syria, as the battles between the opposition and government forces have ended and calm has been restored following reconciliation agreements under direct Russian brokerage since mid-2018.

The Jordanian Ministry of Interior released a statement Sept. 17, which Jordan's Ammon News published, saying that 153,000 Syrians entered Syria through the Nassib-Jaber border crossing since its opening mid-October 2018, and that 33,000 of them have refugee status. The rest are Syrian nationals who entered Jordan to visit their relatives and then returned to Syria, and also traders and Syrians living in Jordan since before the 2011 revolution broke out, who do not have refugee status in Jordan. 

The ministry reiterated that “Jordan is commitment to the voluntary return principle for Syrian refugees and its facilitation of the needed measures for them to leave Jordan.”

Ayman Abo Noqta, a media activist from Daraa in southern Syria, told Al-Monitor, “The figure that the Jordanian Ministry of Interior mentioned in its statement includes all Syrians who entered through the crossing, and many of them came from Syria to visit their relatives in Jordan. The number of refugees returning to Syria — which the statement said amounted to 33,000 — is exaggerated and exceeds the estimates of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. The UNHCR said that 20,000 refugees returned from Jordan to Syria since border opening.