Syrian Christians in Germany fear deportation after Chancellor Merz calls for refugees to ‘go home’ – SyriacPress

BERLIN — When Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared this week that Syrian refugees “must go home now that their country’s war is over,” his words reverberated far beyond Germany’s political circles. They struck a deep chord among tens of thousands of Syrian Christians — including Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) refugees — who fled persecution, conscription, and the destruction of their ancestral towns over the past decade.
For many, Germany has been more than a refuge; it has been a place of rebirth. Syriac churches have reopened in converted warehouses. Children who once hid from bombs in Hmoth (Homs) now speak fluent German and sing in choir stalls in Paderborn or Augsburg.
Yet Merz’s call for mass returns — and his threat of deportation for those who refuse — has left this community fearing that their fragile sense of security could unravel.
The chancellor’s comments came just days after Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, during a rare visit to Daramsuq (Damascus), told reporters that “the potential for Syrians to return is very limited” due to the destruction left by 13 years of war.
The apparent split within Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) highlights growing tensions within the party, which finds itself balancing its centrist tradition against pressure from far-right challengers who have weaponized migration as a political issue.
Merz, who has adopted increasingly hardline rhetoric, insists that Syria’s new government under Ahmad al-Sharaa has opened “a new chapter” for the country since ousting Bashar al-Assad last year. He said he had invited al-Sharaa to Berlin “to discuss how we can resolve this together,” adding that Syria “needs all its strength — and above all, Syrians — to rebuild.”

But for Christian refugees, the assumption that the end of the war equates to safety is dangerously naive. Human rights monitors and church networks report continuing kidnappings, extortion, and targeted violence in parts of northeastern and western Syria, as well as sectarian attacks in Daramsuq, where armed factions and foreign militias still wield influence. The cities of Beth Zalin (Qamishli) and Hasakah in North and East Syria remain demographically fragile, their prewar populations scattered across Europe and the Americas.
“The government may have changed, but the fear hasn’t,” said one Syriac refugee from Hmoth. “Our parents rebuilt their homes after the first displacement. They built our lives here. You can’t just tell us to pack up and start over again.”
Roughly one million Syrians live in Germany, most arriving during the 2015–2016 refugee influx. Among them are an estimated 100,000 Christians from Syria and Iraq — a community that has quietly become one of the pillars of Germany’s Middle Eastern diaspora. Many work in healthcare, construction, and education, and their integration is often cited as a success story.
Still, the CDU’s internal divide over repatriation reflects a broader unease shaping Europe’s migration debate. While Wadephul’s caution points to the humanitarian realities on the ground, Merz’s insistence on return speaks to voters impatient with the economic and political costs of long-term asylum.
For many Christian Syriacs, the prospect of deportation revives memories of exodus, loss, and the centuries-long disappearance of communities from the lands where Christianity first took root.
As Germany’s political debate intensifies, Syriac congregations prepare for Christmas with uncertainty hanging over their pews. Amid candlelight vigils and hymns sung in Syriac, the community now ponders their future in Germany. After a decade of rebuilding their lives, will they once again be forced to flee — this time from the country that gave them refuge.
By Ablahad Hanna Saka | Member of the Bethnahrin National Council Since the early …
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