Najem al-Moussa was delighted when news of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's overthrow first beamed from the television in his tiny Athens apartment. Then came a dreaded thought: what if Assad's fall meant he and his family would be forced to return to the devastated country they had fled nine years before?

I was on a cloud for a few days, but now reality has smacked me in the face,” said Rudi Osman, 37, who fled to France in 2012 and obtained political asylum. It is no longer t