Nearly a year after Syria’s devastating civil war ended with the fall of the Assad regime and the rise of President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the country remains in a state of deep humanitarian distress. As thousands of Syrians return home, they are met with a nation crippled by widespread shortages of medicine, power, equipment, and foreign investment. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that only 58 per cent of hospitals and 23 per cent of primary healthcare centres are currently fully operational, reflecting the fragile state of Syria’s health system.
WHO Representative in Syria, Dr. Christina Bethke, warned that healthcare services are collapsing under acute funding shortages. Since mid-2025, more than 400 health facilities have been affected by budget cuts, and 366 have either reduced or suspended services. These disruptions have left 7.4 million Syrians with limited or no access to medical care, prevented over 122,000 trauma consultations, and forced 13,700 women to give birth without skilled assistance. The country is also suffering from a severe shortage of healthcare professionals, with few conditions in place to encourage the return of skilled workers.
According to UN data, more than 1.16 million Syrians have returned home since the regime’s fall, yet the lack of healthcare, damaged infrastructure, unemployment, and continued insecurity are discouraging many others from doing so. Over seven million people remain displaced within Syria, while 4.5 million still live abroad. Dr. Bethke stressed that for many potential returnees, the absence of essential services such as schools, housing, electricity, and water makes returning home an impossible choice.
In the northeast, the humanitarian situation is especially precarious. Hassakeh National Hospital, serving over 300,000 people, risks losing donor funding next month, which would disrupt ambulance services, primary care, and referral systems. In Deir-ez-Zor, support to al-Kasrah General Hospital has already been suspended, forcing most departments to shut down except dialysis and physiotherapy, affecting more than 700,000 people.
The UN and health partners urgently need $565.5 million to maintain healthcare services in Syria, but only 20 per cent of the funding has been secured. Of the $141.5 million required by WHO and its partners for 2025, $77 million remains unfunded. Dr. Bethke warned that without sustained and predictable financial support, Syria’s fragile health system could collapse just as the country begins to recover — threatening to reverse hard-won progress and deepen the humanitarian crisis.
