How Denmark’s hard line on Syrian refugees is an aid group’s ethical dilemma

Denmark is the first European country to tell large numbers of Syrian refugees to go home. While it hasn’t begun deportations, nearly 400 Syrians from in and around the capital, Damascus, have been stripped of their residency permits and the right to work since 2019.

Few of those affected have risked going back on their own to Syria, where human rights groups have recently documented the torture and disappearance of returning refugees. But they are under increasing pressure, and hundreds have left Denmark in search of refuge in other EU countries. 

The Danish government – which has taken one of the hardest lines on asylum and migration in Europe in recent years – justified its decision by saying there had been a decline in armed conflict in Damascus and its surrounding suburbs.