Syrians in Turkey are trying to decide whether to stay or go
The World
PRX
4.6 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About half a million Syrians living in Turkey have returned to Syria — just one in five. Although aid groups estimate many more will follow, it's a difficult decision, and many are wary of Syria's new leader and struggling economy. Also, a stretched polar vortex is bringing severe winter storm conditions to half the continental US, and is causing temperatures to plummet across even more of the northern hemisphere. And, Guinea-Bissau's minister of health announced Thursday that the country was halting a controversial Danish-led, US-funded trial of a hepatitis B vaccine. Plus, a groundbreaking Australian play has come to New York for a few weeks. It's called "The Visitors," and it tells an important piece of Australian history from an Aboriginal perspective.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A year after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many Syrians living in Turkey are still not ready to go home. |
| 0:11.0 | We will never stay here, you know. We are planning to go back, but we are just waiting for the country to be rebuilt and the economy get |
| 0:21.9 | better. I'm Marco Werman. Syrians facing a tough decision if and when to return to their home |
| 0:26.8 | country. Venezuelans here in the U.S. are dealing with a similar dilemma. There are just going to be |
| 0:32.0 | hundreds of thousands of people in limbo, like in migration purgatory. And in Spain, more young people are returning to the Catholic Church. |
| 0:40.3 | These kids today are looking for silence, he says, |
| 0:44.3 | to disconnect from the noise of the world and to find authenticity. |
| 0:48.3 | Plus high fashion at Center Court and what is causing this bitterly cold weather |
| 0:52.3 | today on the world. |
| 0:58.7 | This is the world. I'm Marco Werman. Appreciate you making it here today. We begin in Syria. It has been |
| 1:04.6 | just over a year since the ouster of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad. Over the weekend, the new |
| 1:09.6 | government struck a deal with Kurdish-led |
| 1:11.5 | militia forces to bring much of northeastern Syria under the command of the central government. |
| 1:16.8 | There has been fighting between rival groups ever since. Syria's long civil war displaced |
| 1:21.3 | more than 13 million people, only about 1.2 million refugees have returned home, according to |
| 1:27.3 | the UN Refugee Agency. |
| 1:29.1 | Duri Baskaran visited a predominantly Syrian neighborhood in Istanbul, Turkey, to hear how refugees there are deciding whether to stay or return home. |
| 1:40.1 | It's the lunch rush at a falafel shop in the middle of Istanbul. |
| 1:49.4 | A big green and black flag of the Syrian Revolution is hung above the cash register. |
| 1:57.2 | We felt we're so happy that we couldn't even imagine that regime will fall. |
| 2:00.4 | Like a dream. Game true. |
| 2:05.6 | Mohamed gives only his first name, because Syrians without valid paperwork here are still at risk of deportation. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.