The number of Syrian refugees living in the Netherlands has barely fallen in the six months since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, despite a 65% drop in new applications.

Latest figures from the refugee accommodation service COA show 28,226 Syrians are currently housed in its facilities, a drop of just 20 since December last year.

Asylum minister Marjolein Faber paused the processing of applications following the collapse of the Al-Assad regime because the of the uncertain security situation in the country.

Faber also offered Syrian refugees €900 and a ticket home if they agreed to leave voluntarily, but only 330 people have so far taken up her offer.

The backlog of applications and the large Syrian population are one reason why accommodation facilities are still overcrowded, even though the number of new asylum seekers from the Middle Eastern country has fallen from 2,905 in the first quarter of 2024 to 940 in the first three months of this year.

Meanwhile, the number of people waiting more than 15 months for a decision on their asylum status has doubled since November from 9,720 to 18,710.

PVV party leader Geert Wilders has said all Syrians should be sent home in the next six months, even though the government has yet to decide which areas of the country are safe.

Wilders also said the overcrowding problem could be solved by removing refugees with settled status from asylum seekers’ accommodation, even if no local council is able to offer them a house. At a press conference last week he said they could be taken in by “family, fellow nationals or Dutch people who claim to be concerned about these people’s fate.”