Problems and future expectations of syrians with temporary protection status: The Malatya example

With the start of the Syrian Civil War, millions of people were forced to flee the war and migrate to different parts of the world, especially to neighboring countries of Syria. Turkey was the country that suffered the most from this forced migration of Syrians. As a result of the policies implemented in the early years of the war, Turkey hosted millions of Syrians, and with the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Syria coming to a standstill, public voices began to rise in favor of the return of Syrians. Unable to remain unresponsive to these voices, political parties began to develop policies for return. While politicians and the public focused and discussed more on return policies, there was something that was overlooked. What were the Syrians thinking and what did they want to do? The idea of this study came exactly at this point. The aim of this study is to learn the current problems and future expectations of Syrians, who are the subject of the migration problem, one of the biggest problems of Turkey today. For this purpose, a face-to-face survey was conducted with 329 people over the age of 18 in Malatya. For the efficiency of the survey, the survey form was applied in Arabic. The problems faced by the participants in the fields of economic, social, education and health were determined with the applied survey. Then, the migration preferences of Syrians under temporary protection status were determined. Finally, the return and future expectations were examined. The obtained data were examined through the SPSS program and the hypotheses were tested.