It’s Time to Go Home - From One Home to Another

Tripoli, Libya – On 13 November, 144 women, men, and children boarded the first two voluntary repatriation flights from Libya to Syria, a moment, for many families, marking the end of 14 years of fleeing war. 

Among them was Samer (38), and his family – his wife Ghazal and their son and daughter.

For Samer, the journey home is the closing of a chapter marked by war, loss, and survival, and the beginning of rebuilding a life he has long dreamed of returning to.

Samer grew up in Homs, in the Al-Bayada neighbourhood — a place he remembers for its warmth, its open doors, and its kind people. When war reached their streets, life became impossible. The area was completely besieged.

“Food couldn’t enter; supplies couldn’t enter — life was impossible,” he recalls. “I had to leave to work and send money to my parents for medicine and food. Otherwise, it was detention or death.”

 Fleeing for his life, he arrived in Libya – a country he says he loved from the beginning.

“The reception we saw at the Libyan border… indescribable. People were generous with children. I will never forget that.”

Samer arrived in Libya in December 2011 got married and settled in Derna. His two children were born there. But when the security situation became untenable in Derna in 2015, the young family fled, travelling for several days until they reached Tripoli. 

Samer worked hard to rebuild life for his family — first in a restaurant, then at a grocery store. But instability continued, and he was forced to move again.

Over the years, Samer lived in Misrata, Tripoli and Zintan, always searching for a safer, more stable environment where his children could grow, play, and have a sense of normality.

“I registered every year. I never missed a renewal.”  After conditions changed in his hometown in Syria, Samer asked UNHCR Libya about voluntary repatriation.

“When they called me and said my name had come up for voluntary return… the joy cannot be described. It’s a feeling I cannot give to anyone — the right to go back to my homeland.”

He remembers arriving two hours early for his medical check “from excitement alone.”

When the final call came — the confirmation he had been waiting for — he immediately shared the news with friends in Misrata, Syrians and Libyans alike.

“Our family in Syria did not sleep that night. Tears of joy.”

He speaks with warmth about the people he met along the way — neighbours who supported him, friends who welcomed his children, and communities that helped him feel at home, and he will sadly leave them now.

“I built a home in almost every place in Libya,” he says. “I met good people who stood by me.” For Samer, these memories are now part of the journey he carries back with him as he returns to Syria.

Today, as Samer prepares to step onto the aircraft, among the 53 women, men and children returning after a long time of being away from home, he holds the hands of the two children who were babies when their journey began — and who are now old enough to carry their own memories.

Ahead of him lies the rubble of the neighbourhood he once knew — but also his parents, still alive, waiting for him. And the hope, as he says, “that Syria will rebuild quickly”

The voluntary repatriation flight marks not an end, but a new beginning — for Samer, for his children, and for the 144 Syrians taking their first steps back to a homeland many have not seen in more than a decade.

“It’s time to go home,” Samer says softly. “By God’s grace — and thanks to UNHCR, from my heart.”