The Interior Ministry said a reassessment of about 40,000 Syrians granted status in the country over the last five years has begun.
The Austrian government says it has started preparations for a deportation programme for Syrians living in the country. The decision followed the government’s suspension of asylum applications from Syrian refugees and comes as millions of refugees are now able to return home following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The Interior Ministry said a reassessment of about 40,000 Syrians granted status in the country over the last five years has begun.
“I have instructed the Ministry of the Interior to prepare a repatriation and deportation programme to ensure that this happens in an orderly manner and that priorities must now be set. This is exactly what is needed at this point in time,” said Gerhard Karner, Austrian interior minister.
“What is being prepared now is that there will be a prioritisation. The focus will be on those who have become criminals, those who do not want to adapt to the cultural values in Europe or Austria, or those who do not want to work and therefore only live on social benefits. They are clearly the priority of this programme.” added Karner.
The al-Assad regime fell on Sunday, 8 December, after a rebel offensive seized control of the capital Damascus. Long-time president Bashar al-Assad and his family left the country for Russia, where they have been granted asylum.
The al-Assad family ruled Syria for 54 years, starting with Bashar-al Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad in 1971. Bashar took charge after his father’s death in 2000. After a 2011 uprising against his rule morphed into a civil war, Russia became a major backer, offering political support and intervening militarily after the regime nearly collapsed under a series of battlefield defeats in 2015.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets of Vienna to celebrate al-Assad’s dramatic fall. Many in the Austrian capital waved Syrian flags, chanting “Syria is free”.
Some 14 million Syrians were forced to leave the country after the civil war began in 2011, triggered by the Arab Spring demonstrations.
Austria’s neighbour Germany took in an estimated 1 million, while around 95,000 were taken in by Austria, many of whom arrived during the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016.
On Monday, the German government announced they were suspending asylum claim applications by Syrian nationals due to the unclear situation in their homeland following the recent developments.
According to Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, more than 47,000 applications are currently pending. It said it would reassess the situation and resume decisions once things in Syria have stabilised.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Sonja Kock noted that asylum decisions take account of the circumstances of each case, which involves assessing the situation in the applicant’s country.
She said the migration authority has the option of prioritising cases from other places if a situation is unclear, as it currently is in Syria.
Authorities in France, Greece, and the UK have also said they were halting asylum decisions for Syrian migrants for the time being.
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