“I am nothing but my children are the future”: Ramadan’s tale, another Syrian voice.

Ramadan never wanted to take his family into exile, but when it became clear that he would be made to fight for Islamic State, he knew it was time to go.   A year ago he and his young family were desperately trying to maintain a sense of normalcy at home near the militants’ stronghold of Raqqa as the war raged about them.  Now they eke out an existence in neighbouring Turkey, a country which offers relative safety, but where the language is alien, work is scarce, and where the authorities are already struggling to accommodate nearly 3 million Syrian refugees.  Ramadan, his wife and children may have a modicum of security, but their sense of loss is palpable.

Suraya, 4, holds her father’s hand in Sanliurfa, SE Turkey

“When I compare my life here, of course it was so much easier in Syria.  When we lived there I used to dream about the future, but in Turkey you can’t dream, all we focus on is where our next meal will come from,” Ramadan says.  The 36-year met a Turkish man who helped them find shelter in a rented two-roomed house on a bare, rocky hillside on the outskirts of the city of Sanliurfa.  Spread out below their squat dwelling, the gleaming tower-blocks of downtown are clearly visible, whilst to the south, undulating, arid terrain rolls 30 km towards the Syrian border.  On the other side rages a conflict which, now in its sixth year, has created a vortex of violence, leaving Ramadan’s hopes for his children’s future in tatters, but which they can do nothing to stop or influence. “This is not our war, if the world’s leaders decided amongst themselves they could stop this happening, but they don’t,” he says. “We are lost here in Turkey, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. ”

Ramadan and Suraya, with Sanliurfa in the background

 

That tomorrow would bring peace remains little more than a faint hope.  A political solution seems as distant as ever and meanwhile the bloodshed continues.  It was Ramadan’s realisation that a militarily struggling Islamic State would call him up to fight, and crack down harder on the populations it rules over that finally pushed them to leave their friends and extended family and head to the border.  Ramadan went first and once he had established himself with a low-paying job and a roof over his head, his wife Guzun followed with their children, Suraya, 4, and Ahmed, 2.  They waited more than 40 days at the frontier before they were able to cross to safety.

Ramadan, Guzun and the children in their neighbours’ home

“I miss all my relatives, who are still in Syria, each week I speak to them on the telephone and they tell me things are getting worse,” Ramadan says.  “In Turkey we don’t need to fear for our safety, but I worry so much about my family, living under Islamic State.  They are always telling people what to wear and how to pray, women can’t go outside.  I heard they even confiscated all the TVs from the houses during Ramadan, because they say it’s haram.”

As a woman, Guzun, 35, says she found life under Islamic State ever more repressive. “At the beginning it was OK because they weren’t attacking our private lives, but as the war started going badly for them, so they started telling us how to live.  They would make us wear the burqa, and even then, if they saw a woman in the street they would force her to pay a fine. I’m not used to living with the burqa.  When they pushed me to cover my whole body it was so difficult. I am a good Muslim, but I know it doesn’t have to be like that,” she says.

Guzun and Suraya

In Turkey Guzun can dress how she likes, but they face new challenges.  Not understanding Turkish, they have struggled to navigate the process of registering as refugees in Turkey, meaning they cannot send Suraya to school, and access to healthcare is a challenge.“Life is good but difficult, if we want anything from the hospitals or schools, we don’t know what to do, we don’t speak the language.” Instead, Suraya sits on the hard stone floor of their darkened little house, colouring pens clutched in one hand, gazing avidly at the pictures in one of the few books they possess.

Ramadan and Suraya outside their house

Ramadan and Guzun hope that things will get better in Turkey, but with so many other refugees, competition for work and services is fierce. Ramadan’s labourer’s job in one of Sanliurfa’s markets is supposed to bring him 15 Turkish Lira ($5) a day, but even that is not guaranteed.  Already he says his boss has held back parts of his salary, but with no legal status and doing what is in effect illegal work, there’s little he can do.  “There was nothing I could say, no way that I could assert my rights.”

Ramadan and Ahmet

Like many Syrians, Ramadan thinks that Europe could offer a brighter future, if only he could get there. “One dream I still have is to travel to Europe, if I had the chance. I wouldn’t go illegally, I will register myself with the Turkish authorities and wait until they call me, but I believe my children would have a better life there.”

More than anything, Ramadan wants to take his family back to where they belong, in Syria. “If the war ended, we’d go home tomorrow,” he insists. Ramadan and Guzun’s story is not unique. It is one of millions of tales of everyday suffering, drowned out by  war and high politics. The deep love they have for their children is palpable, as is the sadness and frustration they feel at how their small lives have been swept up in events they cannot control or understand. “I am nothing,” Ramadan says with a shrug. Then,  stroking Ahmet hair gently and breaking into English for the first and only time he adds: “But they are the future.” 

 

 

 

“The only people benefiting now are the smugglers” – Syrians seek a legal route to Europe without perilous boats

A refugee sits at the border

ANKARA (Reuters) – Omar Badran was lucky to make it to Sweden alive after the smugglers’ boat he took from Libya to Europe sank, killing dozens of fellow migrants.

Now, the Syrian father of three hopes his family will be spared such dangers and be allowed to travel directly from Turkey to join him in his new home.

With legal routes to Europe almost impossible for most of those fleeing Syria’s civil war, Sweden’s decision in 2013 to grant permanent residency to Syrian refugees offers one of the few routes to Europe without braving peril at sea.

As automatic permanent residents, Syrian refugees in Sweden are swiftly allowed to invite close family to join them, a right that in other European countries can take years and may require proof that the first refugee can support the others.

In Ankara’s leafy diplomatic district, only the Swedish embassy has lines of mainly Syrian migrants waiting patiently outside its gates each morning. Most have at least one family member who has already made the dangerous and illegal journey across Europe and is sponsoring their application.

“I had no choice, I couldn’t go legally,” said Badran, 37, who came back to Turkey from Sweden to help ensure that his relatives’ application to join him would be approved.

“Europe should do more to help. Of course Syrians will keep coming illegally. Anything is better than death in Syria,” he said, recounting the horror of watching friends and relatives drown on one of several boats that sank in August 2014.

Europe is struggling to deal with the humanitarian and political fallout from hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East, arriving to seek asylum.

The image of the tiny body of a Syrian toddler found washed up on a Turkish beach last week has piled further public pressure on European leaders to open their doors and spare refugees from the hands of people traffickers.

The crisis has divided EU countries, with some, like Germany and Sweden, offering a warmer welcome while others try to discourage migrants from coming.

The Danish government this week published advertisements in Middle Eastern newspapers warning potential migrants that financial assistance for refugees in Denmark was being slashed, and that family reunification would be difficult.

Sweden, which former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt once called a “humanitarian superpower”, has welcomed refugees for decades and receives more asylum seekers per capita than any other EU nation, with the numbers rising sharply.

Although most Swedes are still proud of that reputation, there has been some backlash at home.

Fredrik Beijer, general counsel at the Swedish Migration Agency, said migrants were attracted to Sweden because it “has a reputation as a country that deals with refugees in a good way. Our system works.”

Nevertheless the sheer numbers mean that there is now a backlog and the process is slowing down, he said.

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker proposed on Wednesday a new system of quotas to distribute asylum seekers who reach Europe among member states. But some countries say that a warm welcome for those reaching the continent illegally just encourages others to make the dangerous journey.

“Europe needs to take in more people, and to do it in a more dignified and planned way,” said Jean-Christophe Pegon, Turkey head of the European Commission Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO).

One solution would be to let more refugees apply for asylum remotely in countries like Turkey, which is currently sheltering 2 million Syrians.

“A better asylum system would enhance their chances,” Pegon said. “But it’s still based on nations being willing to take them in. If countries are not opening their gates, improving procedure won’t help.”

Tens of thousands of Syrians have descended on Turkey’s Aegean coast this summer to catch a boat to tantalisingly nearby Greek islands, in some cases just 2 miles (4 km) away.

They represent a small proportion of those sheltering in Turkey. But as the government in Ankara warns it is reaching capacity and Turkey grapples with its own domestic concerns, the temptation of the relative wealth of Europe lures many who can afford to pay smugglers thousands of dollars.

“Refugees go where they feel the best possible future for their family is going to be,” said Rae Mcgrath, North Syria & Turkey Director for the charity Mercy Corps.

ONLY SMUGGLERS BENEFIT

For now, remote asylum requests are almost unheard of, leaving little option for refugees in Turkey but to try to reach Europe illegally, shelter in camps on the Syrian border or eke out a living in Turkey’s major cities, where families camp in derelict buildings or beg in the streets.

Swedish ambassador to Turkey Lars Wahlund told Reuters directly offering asylum at embassies could create a “tsunami” of applications.

“That’s not possible without international agreements with many countries. For now the only feasible way I see to lessen the burden would be to increase U.N. quotas,” Wahlund said.

Many Western countries already agree to take people directly from refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan on Syria’s borders. Britain has said this week it will take 20,000 over the next five years directly from the region, rather than accept a share of those who reach other parts of the European Union.

But such numbers are marginal against the 4 million refugees in countries directly neighbouring Syria, and around 7.5 million internally displaced within Syria itself.

Selin Unal, spokeswoman for the United Nation’s Refugee agency in Turkey (UNHCR) said that alongside quotas, other mechanisms including humanitarian admission programmes and scholarships for children should be rolled out.

“The only people benefiting now are the smugglers,” she said.

Menal, 42, used to run a restaurant in Damascus before paying $10,000 to travel illegally to Sweden. He is now hoping to bring his wife and disabled son back, although he acknowledges the challenge European nations face.

“Of course if they make it easier, then everyone in Syria would want to come,” he said.

“It’s a big problem for Europe.”

(Additional reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Peter Graff)

As temperatures plummet Turkish authorities sweep up Syrian refugees

Turkey rounded up more than 300 Syrian refugees in Ankara on Friday, tearing down makeshift shelters, eyewitnesses said, in what authorities described as an operation to send vulnerable families to camps as winter temperatures plunge.

Turkey has removed 3,000 refugees nationwide and sent them to a specially built camp in Gaziantep in the south east, Dogan Eskinat, spokesman for Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD told Reuters, without giving a time frame. He said the aim was to ensure that only those able to sustain themselves remain outside of camps.

AFAD says Turkey hosts 1.7 million Syrian refugees, of whom 230,000 are in camps, with access to facilities such as schools, supermarkets and even cinemas.

Remains of makeshift shacks where around 300 Syrian families were living before authorities demolished them

At dawn, a day after the affected families were informed, riot police cleared tents and shacks in Haci Bayram, one of the poorest parts of the capital, and sent 308 of their inhabitants, more than half of whom were children, to a camp, locals said.

One Syrian man laden with battered suitcases said police had let him stay to load his car but he now had no idea where his wife and children were. “I don’t know the name of the camp we’re being sent to,” said the man, who gave his name as Abdullah.

A young child and people searching for firewood picked through wood and tarpaulin littered with abandoned personal belongings, the remains of the refugees’ shanty housing.

A Turkish man strips the remains of the collapsed tents for firewood

Many locals said they were happy to see the Syrians leave although there was discomfort about how it had been handled.

“I want the Syrians to go home, but this sort of evacuation isn’t good. It was like a terrorist operation,” 60-year old Suleyman said.

Storms and blizzards in the Middle East this week have raised concerns for Syrian refugees, although Eskinat said extra precautions have been taken to protect those in Turkish camps.

“The idea is that people living outside of camps are able to sustain themselves,” Eskinat said, adding that evacuations to camps were “a necessity if people are freezing in the street” and the policy will continue for “as long as there is a need”.

Since December, Syrians must be registered in order to get access to free healthcare and schooling outside of camps.

AFAD said the rationale of the registration process, which includes recording biometric data, is to help it coordinate humanitarian relief and direct people to facilities.

(Additional reporting by Umit Bektas; Writing by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Haci Bayram under snow

An old Turkish woman sitting outside her house in Haci Bayram, one of Ankara’s poorest areas

Assad’s staying power leaves Turkey frustrated and exposed

With my colleague, Tulay Karadeniz

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s certain victory in an election next month, derided internationally as a charade, leaves Turkey facing a bitter truth – its assumption of his quick demise was a costly miscalculation.

With al Qaeda-linked armed groups controlling patches of territory across Turkey’s southern border and a registered refugee influx set to top a million within months, Syria’s three-year old war presents Ankara with an increasing financial burden and a growing security threat.

A gun battle in March when special forces raided the suspected Istanbul hide-out of an Islamist militant group active in Syria highlighted the potential threat to Turkey from the thousands of foreign jihadis who have been drawn into the conflict, a portion of them entering Syria over the Turkish border.

The torching of a building housing Syrian refugees in Ankara this month meanwhile pointed to anger at the growing social and economic costs of a humanitarian response which has already cost Turkey close to $3 billion.

With Assad facing no serious challenger in a June 3 election which his Western and Arab foes, as well as the Syrian opposition, have dismissed as a parody of democracy, such tensions are unlikely to dissipate any time soon.

“We may describe Turkish Syria policy as a mess. We’ve committed too much, we’ve talked too big,” said Osman Bahadir Dincer, Syria expert at the Turkish non-partisan thinktank USAK.

“At the very beginning Turkey underestimated the humanitarian problem. Turkey was not prepared and I think the same can be applied to border security.”

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan initially believed his stature in the Middle East and relationship with Assad might enable him to steer the Syrian leader away from conflict. In the early stages of Syria’s uprising in 2011, Erdogan called on Assad to learn the lessons of the Arab Spring and step down.

Erdogan took Assad’s failure to heed his advice as a personal affront, some of those close to him say, and within two years he was leading calls for international military intervention to end his former ally’s rule.

“Turkey’s Syria policy has shown the limits of its influence in the Middle East,” said Fadi Hakura, Turkey expert at the London-based think tank, Chatham House. “It is a clear sign to the U.S. and other partners that Turkey is an important player but not a rising star in the region.”

“MOCKING THE WORLD”

After Syria announced in April that it would hold polls, Turkey was quick to dismiss any election as “null and void”. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu this month accused Damascus of “mocking the world” by organizing the vote. [ID:nL6N0NK2G5]

Syria’s authorities have not said how they will hold the vote in a country where six million people have been displaced and swathes of territory are outside government control.

Assad’s forces have consolidated their grip around Damascus and central Syria, and hold the Alawite heartland provinces on the Mediterranean coast. Rebels control much of the north and east, but have been plagued by infighting.

Turkey is struggling to cope with the spillover.

“Even if you put a soldier on every meter, it’s almost impossible to control if you don’t control what’s happening the other side of the border,” a senior Turkish government official said, asking not to be named in order to speak more freely.

“Turkey has always been a target, but this time we’ve got more of these radicals next to our border, that’s an added threat. And they’re supported by the Syrian regime,” he said.

Diplomats and security experts fear expertise developed by fighters inside Syria, such as the use of new types of explosives, could be used in attacks in Turkey or beyond.

Istanbul, where car bombs claimed by al Qaeda targeted the British consulate and local offices of HSBC just over a decade ago, and Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean resorts, popular with European holiday-makers, are seen as potential soft targets.

GROWING THREAT

Erdogan’s critics say his government’s scramble to support the rebels has allowed weapons and foreign fighters to flow to extremists, a charge it strongly rejects.

“Al Qaeda, Nusra are known by and supported by the (Turkish) government. Haven’t you seen the trucks,” said 32-year old Nihat, a resident of Antakya, the main city in Turkey’s Hatay border province, referring to convoys crossing the frontier.

Erdogan has said it is “out of the question” that such groups can take shelter in Turkey and has repeatedly stressed Turkey will continue to exclude them from its broader support for the moderate Syrian opposition. [ID:nL5N0IS34K]

Turkey has made a number of weapons seizures on the border.

The March raid on the suspected ISIL base in Istanbul followed the gunning down a week earlier of two members of the security forces in the southern province of Nigde by militants suspected of links to extremist groups inside Syria.

“We’ll be seeing an increased threat of anti-Turkish and anti-Western terror for many years to come,” said one Ankara-based diplomat, saying the government was waking up only slowly to the need for a tougher approach on border security.

SOCIAL COSTS

Throughout the conflict, polls have suggested the majority of Turks are against deeper Turkish involvement in Syria.

While its humanitarian efforts have been much praised by international partners, social tensions are beginning to surface in the face of ever spiraling refugee numbers, and the realization that many of them could be here to stay.

Turks living near the border express frustration that around three quarters of Syrian refugees are now living outside camps, competing with locals for jobs and housing. The torching of the Ankara building this month followed accusations that a Syrian man had beaten up a local. Riot police had to intervene.

Residents along the border reported a tripling in the price of staple foods like tomatoes, whilst rents had gone up by a factor of five, according to a USAK study from last November. In Istanbul, where land prices are already sharply on the rise, some poorer neighborhoods home to large numbers of Syrian migrants had doubled to $750 a month, it said.

The United Nations estimates there are 750,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, although Turkish officials say the number is closer to 1 million, the vast majority of them living outside the more than a dozen camps established near the border.

“Registration is a mess. They have a pretty good estimate of how many people are in Turkey, but do they know exactly who they are and what they need? No,” said Jean Christophe Pegon, Turkey head of the European Commission Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO).

Davutoglu said in an interview with Reuters earlier this year that Syria’s worsening war posed a danger to all countries because of the “totalitarian” nature of Assad’s rule and the influx of jihadists from around the world. [ID:nL6N0LV0H6]

Turkey risks bearing the brunt while struggling to assert itself as a leader in coordinating a response.

(Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva in Antakya; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Janet McBride)

Originally published on @Reuters