About 500 Syrians affected by Swiss asylum freeze

SEM: suspension of asylum procedures affects 500 Syrians in Switzerland Keystone-SDA

The suspension of asylum procedures decided Monday following the fall of Bashar al-Assad affects 500 Syrian applicants in Switzerland, according to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM).

The freeze applies only to procedures already underway, the SEM clarified, seeking to clarify a decision “that has not been understood.”

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The suspension for Syrian asylum seekers “simply postpones the decision until the situation is clearer,” said SEM spokeswoman Anne Césard, when contacted by the Keystone-SDA news agency.

The State Secretariat of Migration was unable to say when the applications of the 500 people whose procedure has been suspended were submitted.

New asylum applications are still possible and the freeze on forced returns to Syria, decided in 2011, remains in place, Anne Césard said, reiterating that the SEM decision “has not been understood.” According to October data, some 10 people have so far received a removal decision without yet having been returned to Syria.

Duration unknown

According to the spokeswoman, the suspension of procedures could last from a few weeks to a few months. On Monday, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis had spoken of a few days to a few weeks. A similar decision had been made for Sudan in February. Almost a year later, it is still in effect.

Several European countries, including France and Germany, announced Monday that they were suspending the processing of asylum applications from Syria. Austria went so far as to announce that it was preparing a “repatriation and expulsion program.”

There are more than six million Syrian refugees in the world. At the end of last year, there were about 28,000 Syrian nationals living in Switzerland, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac

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