Should Syrians who have been found guilty of a criminal offence in Germany be sent back to Syria? The question has come up for renewed debate after a deadly knife attack in the western German city of Solingen by a Syrian man who had been meant to be sent back to Bulgaria, the country where he had arrived, and where, according to European rules, he should have been staying.

Attention is also focused on this question because of the fact that the far-right and anti-immigrant political party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, just triumphed in state elections in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. Media reports about refugees who are supposedly vacationing in their homeland have also fueled the debate. But what is the situation in Syria?

Syria is currently divided into four areas controlled by different actors. The largest part — making up about 60% of the country — is controlled by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

A smaller part of Syria in the northwest is run by the extremist group, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, also known as HTS.

North from there, Turkey is in charge of two areas bordering on its own territory. Then areas in the north-east are run mostly by Syrian-Kurdish forces.

However none of those four areas can be considered safe, says André Bank, a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, or GIGA, who recently wrote a paper on exactly this topic, together with another expert Ronja Herrschner.

"In my opinion, deportations to any of the four regions should currently be prohibited," Bank told DW.

In Bank and........

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