Swiss suspend decisions on asylum-seekers from Syria

SEM suspends asylum procedure for asylum seekers from Syria Keystone-SDA

Asylum procedures and decisions for asylum-seekers from Syria will be suspended with immediate effect until the situation can be reassessed, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) tweeted on Monday.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The SEM said it was currently unable to make a well-founded assessment as to whether there are grounds for asylum and whether it is reasonable to enforce a removal order.

In Syria, rebels captured the capital Damascus on Sunday after more than 13 years of civil war. President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. It is unclear how the balance of power in the country will now develop.

+ Fall of Assad: Switzerland calls for reconciliation in Syria

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].