Syrians in Japan face turning point

Syria has begun the process of rebuilding after the Assad regime that lasted more than half a century fell in December last year. Japan's Immigration Services Agency estimates nearly 1,500 Syrians have come here since its prolonged civil war began in 2011. NHK World spoke with some of them who face a choice: stay where they have worked hard to establish new lives, or return to contribute to the rebirth of their homeland.
Over 500,000 of more than five million Syrians who fled during the conflict have returned to the country since December, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Mohammed Al-Masri had to decide whether to join them. He is from the Syrian city of Homs, which was mostly destroyed in the conflict, and came to Japan with his wife and children in 2018. Mohammed Al-Masri
NHK World spoke with Al-Masri at his friend's home near Tokyo in March — the same room where he and his friends watched news of the Assad regime's collapse. He described the surge of emotion he felt, and said the situation still sometimes seems unreal to him.
"It's been months now, but every single day, I ask myself 'Did it really happen? Has he gone? Is Assad really toppled?' And then I realized that was not a dream," he said.
Al-Masri said it was only recently that he stopped having nightmares of being arrested at a checkpoint, and looking up at the sky in fear whenever heard a passing helicopter or jet. He says millions of his fellow Syrians are living with similar anxieties.
"It's something that we need to cope up with and to recover, and the first step towards recovery is to admit that we have our own traumas in one way or another," he said. Survivor's guilt
Al-Masri said he also feels survivor's guilt, knowing that most of his friends who stayed in Syria met a different fate.
When protestors rose up against the longtime rule of the Assads in 2011, Al-Masri said he took part in the movement for democracy.
At that time, he was a graduate student at Homs University and taught English at an elementary school. But he said he got threats from the government because of his participation in the protests. He was forced to leave his studies as the situation in his country deteriorated into a long civil war.
One night in November 2013, his apartment was attacked while he and his wife were sleeping.
"We barely survived. We were very lucky to survive the rocket or the missile," he said. "At that moment, my wife and we decided that we would leave Syria." Mohammed Al-Masri says his apartment was destroyed by airstrikes in November 2013. Lessons from Japan's experiences
The couple fled to neighboring Lebanon in 2014, where their two children were born. Al-Masri started to work educating youths in Syrian refugee camps.
Four years later, he and his family moved to Japan after he was granted a Japanese government scholarship. He earned his master's degree focused on peacebuilding from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and then began doctoral research at Waseda University. Mohammed Al-Masri came to Japan with his family in 2018.
Al-Masri produced a documentary in 2022 with his Syrian friend, filming in both Hiroshima and Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture, to record lessons Japanese people learned from their experiences.
He visited Hiroshima in 2022 to meet hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – who have long campaigned for the abolition of such weapons. He wanted to learn how they could overcome feelings of despair and continue to call for a world free of nuclear weapons and war.
"For me, one of the challenges that I was facing in Japan was that the situation in Syria was getting worse and worse, and there was no hope then that Assad would be dethroned," he said.
"Meeting the hibakusha, I could see that the work they do is amazingly important and very, very inspirational." Mohammed Al-Masri, right, met atomic-bomb survivors in Hiroshima in 2022.
Al-Masri also went to Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture, which was hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The city used to be famous for its vast grove of 70,000 pine trees, all but one of which were swept away by the tsunami following the quake.
He said he was inspired by survivors in their 80s who planted saplings as part of recovery efforts, even though they knew they would not see the trees reach maturity. Mohammed Al-Masri, second from left, produced a documentary that features survivors of Japan's 2011 tsunami cultivating pine seedlings.
"We cannot guarantee that the change will happen while we are still alive. We have to keep trying, trying, and we have to do what's right," he said.
Al-Masri was motivated to return to his homeland and help rebuild it for children who will hand down the meaning of peace to future generations.
"What is more important than anything else is actually to focus on the future, to have this kind of a reconciliation and to focus on tomorrow and planning for tomorrow, not to take revenge," he said. Rebuilding schools
In January 2025, Al-Masri returned to Syria by himself and reunited with his parents for the first time in over a decade. His father guided him around scenes of devastation left in the wake of the regime's collapse.
The sight of a former school completely destroyed by airstrikes made him determined to help rebuild the country's education system. He aims to establish a new elementary school there.
"It's our responsibility also to do our best, that our children will not face the same challenges and the same situation in the future," he said. Al-Masri visited a destroyed school said to have been occupied by the former regime, with snipers on its rooftop.
His wife Aya Idrees, who shares his vision, told NHK World, "I didn't need any convincing."
Their children were looking forward to going to a home country which they had never even visited before. However, his daughter had mixed feelings because of the language: she had not studied much in Arabic. Aya Idrees, Mohammed's wife, left, unfurled Syria's new flag at the airport as the family departed from Japan at the end of March. Pursuing 'home'
Syrians who remain in Japan are wrestling with the question of how to help their homeland.
Anas Hijazi is one of Al-Masri's close friends. He is from the city of Homs and came to Japan in 2019 on the same study program after living in Lebanon for seven years. Hijazi said he was forced to flee forced conscription by the Assad regime right after he graduated from Homs University, majoring in engineering. But his younger brother was detained and tortured for a year after he left the country. Anas Hijazi
"I was very afraid to live in Syria every single moment of my day. Even going to the university, we had three military checkpoints on the way. So every day I went, I was afraid for my life," Hijazi said. "But I knew that if I left Syria before having any degree, then I would suffer tremendously. So I risk my life for the next two years until I finished."
He said he misses his father and elder sister who remain in his hometown. During his absence, Hijazi's mother died after she was infected with COVID-19.
Hijazi earned a master's degree in engineering from Soka University, and then joined a company as an IT consultant. Anas Hijazi, third from right, works as an IT consultant.
"I can say very comfortably that after a few years living in Japan, it was the first time for me to feel at home. I lived in Lebanon for seven years, but I never felt home there," he said.
Hijazi said living in a safe country allowed him to speak to groups of Japanese students about Syria's plight under the former regime. After a massive earthquake struck the northern part of the country in 2023, he and Al-Masri took part in a fundraising campaign to help the disaster victims. Hijazi, in the center of the second row, and Al-Masri, in the first row on the right, with other Syrians involved in fundraising in Japan for the most vulnerable families in the most affected areas back home.
While the fall of the Assad regime gave him a sense of relief, he is unsure whether he will return permanently. In the meantime, he is watching to see if the country's peace can be sustained.
In May, Syria's interim government established two independent institutions: the National Commission for Transitional Justice and the National Commission for the Missing. They are tasked with probing crimes committed during the Assad regime, compensating victims and locating thousands of people whose whereabouts remain unknown.
"I was thinking, without transitional justice, there can never be any peace. So finding this very hard line that will keep the country together is something until now keeps me puzzled," Hijazi said.
He added that his traumatic experiences in his homeland, as well as his years as a refugee in Lebanon, make him wary of relocating to a place where safey and stability are not assured.
"It leaves you with endless scars and bad memories, and getting over that is not easy," he said. "We need to build this new trust between me and my previous home, and establishing that is unexplored territory." No right or wrong answer
NHK World observed a conversation in Tokyo in March which Hijazi shared his concerns with Al-Masri, and asked him about his decision to stay in Japan for now. Anas Hijazi and Mohammed Al-Masri met in Tokyo in mid-March.
Hijazi said that he has a job and an income in Japan, and he fears losing everything if he leaves it all behind. Al-Masri empathized with this, and told him, "If you return to Syria, you need to make a life plan seriously and precisely. So I can say your thought is correct, and your choice is correct."
Hijazi asked his friend, "When you decided to return, weren't you worried about your kids' education or adapting to life there?" Al-Masri replied that he knew there would be challenges, but all he could do was "deal with whatever happens."
Al-Masri said, "The most important thing for me is having a sense of belonging to the country, and a sense of responsibility. I believe that when I return, I can do something, however small."
Hijazi and Al-Masri understood and respected each other's choices. They agreed to draw upon their own networks and experiences to bridge Syria and Japan, and do all they could to contribute to their country's rebuilding. 'A new page' Al-Masri sent NHK World video footage of the Eid festival in Homs in April which celebrated the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
One month after Al-Masri returned to Syria, he sent videos to NHK World showing how his country is gradually returning to normal. His hometown was severely damaged so he decided to settle in a different area, where his children are getting used to their new life. Al-Masri's daughter Alma, left, says that she usually uses Japanese when she argues with her brother Dia, center, at home. Dia enjoys his new life in Syria but says he misses drinking Japanese milk.
In May, the Japanese government partially lifted sanctions it had imposed on Syria, following similar moves by the European Union and the United States. Like Hijazi, the global community is watching to see if the country's peace can be sustained as the country navigates its new era.
"We have a new page and it's becoming real and we are able to relive what we dreamed of," Al-Masri said in an online interview from Syria. Mohmmed Al-Masri shared his situation from Syria in an online interview with NHK World at the end of April.
Al-Masri said that anyone living in Japan or another developed country could not help comparing the level of services there with those in Syria as it rebuilds. Despite this, he said he felt good to be where he was.
"This is our home and we have to do our best to help the country recover, and contribute to the reconstruction of the country."

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