NPR

In Denmark, Fears Grow Among Syrian Asylum Seekers As Residence Permits Are Revoked

Denmark says security in Syria has improved enough for some refugees to go back. "The words 'to send us back to Syria' means to destroy our lives," says a Syrian whose residence permit was revoked.
Heba Alrejleh and Radwan Jomaa with children Aya, 11, Lilian, 4, and Mohamed, 10. "The words 'to send us back to Syria' means to destroy our lives," says Jomaa.

In 2019, Danish authorities issued a report stating that the security situation in some parts of Syria had "improved significantly." Last year, that report was used as justification to begin reevaluating hundreds of Danish residence permits granted to Syrian refugees from the area around and including the capital Damascus.

Now some of those refugees are being told, officially, that their time in Denmark is up.

Among those affected are Heba Alrejleh and Radwan Jomaa, a couple from Damascus. Jomaa left Syria in 2013, traveling first to Egypt and later making his way to Italy. Upon landing there, he says, the Syrians on his

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