A First Step Home: Supporting Syrian Families Move Forward In Rebuilding Their Lives
A First Step Home: Supporting Syrian Families Move Forward In Rebuilding Their Lives
Kholoud speaks with UNHCR staff in Twihina Camp as she prepares to return to her community in Deir Baalbeh, Homs Governorate, together with her daughter and grandchildren.
After years of displacement, many Syrian families considering return or relation face decisions shaped by housing damage, livelihoods, access to services, safety concerns and cost of moving. With support from the Syria Humanitarian Fund (SHF), UNHCR and partners have helped families who have made the voluntary decision to leave camps and displacements to prepare for and undertake their journeys with greater safety and dignity. Transportation for people and their belongings is a large part of this wider process, and the funding from the SHF has enabled UNHCR to organize movement support at scale, coordinating with authorities and partners, and delivering protection measures crucial to organized voluntary movements.
Before an organised movement takes place, UNHCR and partners work with families to verify household information, intended destinations and the decision to move. Families receive information relevant to the journey and available services, while protection teams identify specific needs and help address risks such as family separation and exposure to explosive ordnance.
Kholoud's and Enad's families are among more than 37,500 internally displaced Syrians who benefited from UNHCR-supported transportation assistance between May and September 2026, helping facilitate voluntary returns and relocations from camps and displacement sites across Syria.
After nearly a decade of displacement, Kholoud, an elderly grandmother, is preparing for a journey she once feared might never happen. Together with her widowed daughter and two grandchildren, she is leaving Twihina Camp in Ar-Raqqa countryside to return to Deir Baalbeh in Homs Governorate, a neighborhood she was forced to flee during the conflict.
Forced to leave their home, the family spent years waiting for the opportunity to return. While the prospect of going back brings hope, it is also accompanied by uncertainty. Their home was destroyed, their livelihood assets were lost, and the family continues to face health-related and financial challenges.
"We have mixed feelings about going back," said Kholoud. "We are happy because we will finally return to our community, but we are also worried about what awaits us there. Still, we have hope that we can start again."
"We are happy because we will finally return to our community"
For years, the family relied on humanitarian assistance while supporting one another through the challenges of displacement. Despite the destruction of their home and the difficulties that lie ahead, they remain determined to reconnect with their community and begin rebuilding their lives.
For many displaced families, the challenge is not only transporting family members, but also moving the productive assets they depend on to restart their lives. Families often need to transport furniture, household items, agricultural equipment, and, in some cases, livestock, making the cost of return difficult to afford. Transportation assistance helps ease this burden, allowing families to preserve their limited resources for other essential needs upon arrival.
While Kholoud's family is returning to their area of origin, other displaced families are taking a different path toward stability.
Enad speaks with UNHCR staff in Mahmoudli Camp as he prepares to leave the camp and begin a new chapter with his family.
After nearly nine years in Mahmoudli Camp, Enad and his family of eight decided to move to a collective shelter in Al Hesyah, but this movement does not yet represent a return home. Unable to return to their area of origin in Palmyra (Tadmor) in Homs Governorate because their home was destroyed during the conflict, they chose to move while seeking safer living conditions, specialised medical care for one of their daughters, and greater livelihood opportunities.
The transportation assistance enabled them to make the move and pursue more opportunities.
"I want to go to Al Hesyah in southern Homs Governorate to search for a job opportunity that can support me and my family," said Enad. "I will keep searching until I find a good place where we can stay and start again."
For Enad, finding work and accessing basic and specialised services are immediate priorities as he seeks more stable living conditions for his family.
Although their destinations are different, both Kholoud’s and Enad’s families share the same determination to move forward after years of displacement.
For families like Kholoud's and Enad's, transportation assistance is more than logistical support. It helps remove one of the key barriers to voluntary return or relocation, allowing families to travel safely and with dignity while preserving their limited resources for other urgent needs such as housing, healthcare, education, and livelihoods.
Reaching a destination safely is an important step, but it is not the end of the journey. Kholoud’s family must rebuild after the destruction of their home, while Enad’s family remains displaced and continues to search for adequate housing, medical care and a sustainable income. Their experiences show both the value and the limits of transportation support: it can remove a decisive practical barrier and make movement more organized and dignified, but sustained assistance in areas of arrival and return remains essential.
Through support from the Syria Humanitarian Fund, UNHCR and partners are helping families who have made a voluntary decision to move undertake that journey with their family members and belongings, while linking movement arrangements with information, protection support and follow-up wherever available.
Although their paths are different, Kholoud's and Enad's families share the same hope: the opportunity to regain stability, rebuild their lives, and create a better future after years of displacement.