Turkey’s refugee problem at the center of heated debates

Migrants walk to Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing with Greece's Kastanies, in Pazarkule, Turkey, February 28. (Reuters)
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Updated 23 April 2022
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Turkey’s refugee problem at the center of heated debates

  • Analyst highlights need for a proactive nationwide integration strategy to fit Syrians into local society

ANKARA: Turkey’s migration management policy has become a hot topic in recent days, with members of the public asking for stricter security measures against irregular inflows.

The growing hostility toward refugees has not only been triggered by a worsening economic situation in Turkey, but also following a series of recent incidents.

The memories are still fresh following protests in Ankara last August against houses and workplaces owned by Syrians, following reports that a Syrian refugee stabbed two Turkish men in a fight.

Amid widespread criticism from opposition parties that want refugees deported, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Syrian refugees would voluntarily return to their country once peace is established in Syria.

According to Prof. Murat Erdogan of Ankara University, 85 percent of Turks want Syrians to be repatriated or to be isolated in camps or safe zones.

There is also an ongoing debate in Turkey about whether to allow Syrian refugees to return if they are able to briefly visit their homeland during the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The Turkish government is currently working on a plan to restrict the passages during Ramadan, discouraging many Syrians from leaving over fears they may not be allowed back into Turkey.

“Irregular migration is an unnamed invasion,” said the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahceli, the coalition partner of the ruling government.

The topic, which gained momentum after the recent arrival of about 60,000 Ukrainian refugees to Turkey, has been promoted by anti-immigrant parties, such as the Zafer Party, who have said they will send all refugees back to their home countries after 2023 elections.

“Turkey is indeed bound by international law of non-refoulement, which prohibits the return of anyone to a place where they would be at risk, and this principle is also protected by the national laws including the temporary protection offered to Syrians,” Begum Basdas, researcher at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School in Berlin, told Arab News.

Turkey hosts about 3.7 million Syrians. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu recently announced that some 500,000 have returned to safe areas created in northern Syria after Turkey’s cross-border operations, and more than 19,000 Syrians have been deported since 2016 for breaking the law.

“Treating migrants as bargaining chips by states is nothing new, but what is worrisome today is that the public is also in on the ‘game.’ We must recognize that Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, and this is a strength, not a burden,” said Basdas.

Turkey has awarded citizenship to 192,000 Syrians so far, but the opposition has also asked for more security checks in granting citizenship, as they claim some criminals use it to cross over Turkey’s borders.

Ahead of the upcoming elections in 2023, the main opposition Republican People’s Party pledged to send Syrian migrants back to their countries, and reconcile with the Assad regime to ease the return of Syrian nationals.

Friedrich Puttmann, a researcher at the Istanbul Policy Center, said the reasons why most Turks today reject Syrian refugees are diverse, including economic, social and political reasons.

“Economically, many Turks perceive the Syrians to be the cause of rising rental prices and Turkish citizens’ joblessness. That is because one third of the Turkish economy is informal and most Syrians work informally too, however, most of the time for lower wages than Turks. For many Turks, this the reason why they can’t find work anymore,” he told Arab News.

“Moreover, many Turks tend to believe that the Turkish state privileges Syrians by not collecting taxes on their entrepreneurial activity, giving them privileged access to health care and education, and paying them welfare benefits that are not available for Turks. Most Turks don’t know that the latter two are mostly financed by the EU in fact. However, the seeming injustice this creates in the eyes of Turkish citizens upsets many of them,” he added.

According to Puttmann, Turks’ attitudes toward Syrian refugees also have a political dimension, which mirrors Turkey’s internal struggles over national identity.

“On the surface, many secular Turks reject Syrians for being too religiously conservative whereas many religiously conservative Turks reject Syrians for not behaving like ‘proper Muslims.’ Under the surface, both criticisms are expressions of how different Turks would like to see their country and are therefore more directed at Turkish society in general than at the Syrian refugees in particular,” he said.

Puttmann also thinks that, with the omnipresence of nationalism, most Turks come together in fearing that Syrians will not adapt to Turkish society and one day will outnumber them.

But, the voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their homeland remains unlikely, as the present conditions in Syria are still not conducive for them to rebuilding a life.

“Many Syrians have lost all they had, fear Assad, and their children may have grown up more in Turkey than Syria by now. This means that no matter how many Syrians will eventually return to Syria, a certain number will most likely stay in Turkey forever,” Puttmann said.

According to experts, Turkish authorities should work on sustainable solutions, like resettlement to third countries, for sharing responsibilities with the international community.

For Basdas, it is not possible to “open the gates to Europe for refugees” or “send them back to Syria in buses.”

She said: “Such electoral wishful promises are not soothing to anyone, but fuel further anti-refugee sentiments and racism in Turkey and provokes the public to the route of pogroms and violence. There is no return from there.”

Puttmann agrees and said that there is a need for a pro-active nationwide integration strategy to fully fit Syrians into local society.

“First, Turkish society should formulate what it expects of Syrian refugees to be integrated, taking into consideration the refugees’ rights and own expectations as well.

“Second, Turkey should come up with a plan of how to get there.

“Third, the EU should support this process with expertise and financial aid, as solving the refugee issue in Turkey is also in the EU’s vital interest.”


Gaza rescuers say three babies among 11 killed in Israel strike

Updated 14 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say three babies among 11 killed in Israel strike

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported 11 killed “after the bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in the Khan Yunis camp” in southern Gaza at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT).
Bassal told AFP that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one-year-olds, and a month-old baby.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas that was triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
On Friday the civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people across the war-ravaged territory, which has been under a total Israeli blockade since March 2.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza, saying Hamas had diverted supplies. Israel says the blockade is meant to pressure the militants into releasing hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have urged Israel to lift restrictions, saying that Gazans were experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe and warning of famine.


‘The janjaweed are coming’: Sudanese recount atrocities in RSF attack on a Darfur camp

Updated 03 May 2025
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‘The janjaweed are coming’: Sudanese recount atrocities in RSF attack on a Darfur camp

  • The RSF has repeatedly claimed Zamzam and nearby Abu Shouk Camp were used as bases by the military and its allied militias
  • The paramilitaries destroyed Zamzam’s only functioning medical center, killing nine workers from Relief International

CAIRO: Umm Al-Kheir Bakheit was 13 when she first came to Zamzam Camp in the early 2000s, fleeing the janjaweed, the infamous Arab militias terrorizing Sudan’s Darfur region. She grew up, married and had three children in the camp.
Now 31, Bakheit fled Zamzam as the janjaweed’s descendants — a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces — stormed into the camp and went on a three-day rampage, killing at least 400 people, after months of starving its population with a siege.
Bakheit and a dozen other residents and aid workers told The Associated Press that RSF fighters gunned down men and women in the streets, beat and tortured others and raped and sexually assaulted women and girls.
The April 11 attack was the worst ever suffered by Zamzam, Sudan’s largest displacement camp, in its 20 years of existence. Once home to some 500,000 residents, the camp has been virtually emptied. The paramilitaries burned down large swaths of houses, markets and other buildings.
“It’s a nightmare come true,” Bakheit said. “They attacked mercilessly.”
The attack came after months of famine
The attack on Zamzam underscored that atrocities have not ended in Sudan’s 2-year-old war, even as the RSF has suffered heavy setbacks, losing ground recently to the military in other parts of the country.
Throughout the war, the RSF has been accused by residents and rights groups of mass killings and rapes in attacks on towns and cities, particularly in Darfur. Many of RSF’s fighters originated from the janjaweed, who became notorious for atrocities in the early 2000s against people identifying as East or Central African in Darfur.
“Targeting civilians and using rape as a war weapon and destroying full villages and mass killing, all that has been the reality of the Sudan war for two years,” said Marion Ramstein, MSF emergency field coordinator in North Darfur.
Zamzam Camp was established in 2004 to house people driven from their homes by janjaweed attacks. Located just south of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, it swelled over the years to cover an area 8 kilometers (5 miles) long by about 3 kilometers (2 miles) wide.
In the spring of 2024, the RSF clamped a siege around Zamzam as it moved against el-Fasher, one of the last strongholds of the Sudanese military in Darfur.
Many have died of starvation under the siege, Bakheit and others said. “For too long, there was no option but to eat grass and tree leaves,” she said.
Famine was declared in the camp in August after RSF attacks forced the UN and aid groups to pull out of Zamzam. A comprehensive death toll from the famine is not known.
Ahlam Al-Nour, a 44-year-old mother of five, said her youngest child, a 3-year-old, died of severe malnutrition in December.
The RSF has repeatedly claimed Zamzam and nearby Abu Shouk Camp were used as bases by the military and its allied militias. It said in a statement that it took control of the camp on April 11 to “secure civilians and humanitarian workers.” It denied its fighters targeted civilians. The RSF did not reply to AP’s questions on the attack.
‘The janjaweed are coming’
Bakheit, who lived on the southern edge of Zamzam, said she heard loud explosions and heavy gunfire around 2 a.m. April 11. The RSF started with heavy shelling, and people panicked as the night sky lit up and houses burst into flames, Bakheit said.
By sunrise, the RSF-led fighters broke into her area, storming houses, kicking residents out and seizing valuables, Bakheit and others said. They spoke of sexual harassment and rape of young women and girls by RSF fighters.
“The children were screaming, ‘The janjaweed are coming’,” Bakheit said.
About two dozen women who fled to the nearby town of Tawila reported that they were raped during the attack, said Ramstein, who was in Tawila at the time. She said the number is likely much higher because many women are too ashamed to report rapes.
“We’re talking about looting. We’re talking about beating. We’re talking about killing, but also about a lot of rape,” she said.
The paramilitaries rounded up hundreds of people, including women and children. Bakheit said fighters whipped, beat, insulted and sexually harassed her in front of her children as they drove her family from their home.
She said she saw houses burning and at least five bodies in the street, including two women and a boy, the ground around them soaked in blood.
The fighters gathered Bakheit and about 200 other people in an open area and interrogated them, asking about anyone fighting for the military and its allied militias.
“They tortured us,” said Al-Nour, who was among them.
Al-Nour and Bakheit said they saw RSF fighters shoot two young men in the head during the interrogation. They shot a third man in the leg and he lay bleeding and screaming, they said.
One video shared online by RSF paramilitaries showed fighters wearing RSF uniforms by nine bodies lying motionless on the ground. A fighter says he is inside Zamzam and that they would kill people “like this,” pointing to the bodies on the ground.
Much of the camp was burned
The RSF rampage, which also targeted Abu Shouk Camp north of el-Fasher, went on for days.
The paramilitaries destroyed Zamzam’s only functioning medical center, killing nine workers from Relief International. They killed at least 23 people at a religious school, mostly young students studying the Qur’an, according to the General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.
Much of the south and east of the camp was burned to the ground, the General Coordination said.
Satellite imagery from April 16 showed thick black smoke rising from several active fires in the camp. At least 1.7 square kilometers (0.65 square miles) appeared to have been burned down between April 10-16, said a report by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which analyzed and published the imagery. That is about 10 percent of the camp’s area.
The imagery showed vehicles around the camp and at its main access points, which HRL said were probably RSF checkpoints controlling entry and exit.
By April 14, only about 2,100 people remained in the camp, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
An arduous journey
After being detained for three hours, Bakheit, Al-Nour and dozens of other women and children were released by the paramilitaries.
They walked for hours under the burning summer sun. Bakheit and Al-Nour said that as they passed through the camp, they went by burning houses, the destroyed main market and bodies of men, women, children in the streets, some of them charred.
They joined an exodus of others fleeing Zamzam and heading to the town of Tawila, 64 kilometers (40 miles) west of El Fasher. Al-Nour said she saw at least three people who died on the road, apparently from exhaustion and the effects of starvation and dehydration.
“The janjaweed, once again, kill and torture us,” Bakheit said. “Like my mother did about 20 years ago, I had no option but to take my children and leave.”


Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says

An Israeli fighter jet fires a rocket as it flies over an area near the Syrian capital Damascus on April 30, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 03 May 2025
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Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says

  • Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war

CAIRO: Israeli strikes targeted the vicinity of Syria’s Damascus, Hama and Daraa countryside late on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The strikes on Damascus countryside killed one civilian and injured four others in Hama, SANA added.
Israel’s repeated strikes on Syria act as a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus, which Israel views as a potential threat on its border.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes on Syria on Friday, saying it targeted “a military site, anti-aircraft cannons, and surface-to-air missile infrastructure.”
The Israeli army has previously said it targeted Syria’s military infrastructure, including headquarters and sites containing weapons and equipment, since mainly Sunni Muslim Islamist fighters toppled President Bashar Assad in December.
Earlier on Friday, Israel bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus, in its clearest warning yet to Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities of its readiness to ramp up military action, which has included strikes it said were in support of the country’s Druze minority.
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.

 


Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town

Updated 02 May 2025
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Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town

  • RSF paramilitaries say they took key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state
  • Area is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade

CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group claimed a “sweeping victory” Friday saying it took control of the key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state in a fight that intensified a day earlier.
A victory there by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, would mark a strategic loss for Sudan’s military in its war with the paramilitary force as the territory is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade.
The Sudanese army didn’t immediately comment on its social media channels on whether it lost Al Nahud to its rival.
Sudan’s Culture and Information Minister Khalid Ali Aleisir said on his Facebook account on Friday the RSF committed crimes against defenseless citizens in the town, looting their properties and destroying public facilities.
The RSF said on its Telegram channel Friday that it destroyed vehicles belonging to the army and seized their weapons and ammunition during the battle for Al Nahud. The paramilitary group also claimed that it managed to secure the city’s facilities and markets after defeating the army.
The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of the capital Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.
RSF attacks in Al Nahud have killed more than 300 unarmed civilians, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union said on Facebook on Friday. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that figure.
The Resistance Committees of Al Nahud condemned the RSF attacks, which it said began Thursday morning.
“They invaded the city, stormed residential neighborhoods, terrorized unarmed civilians, and committed cold-blooded murders against innocent civilians whose only crime was to cling to their dignity and refuse to leave their homes to the machine of killing and terror,” the Resistance Committees said Thursday on Facebook.
An army loss of Al Nahud would impact its operational capabilities in Northern Kordofan state, according to the Sudan War Monitor, an open source collaborative project that has been documenting the two-year-war. Al Nahud is a strategic town because it’s located along a main road that the army could use to advance into the Darfur region, which the RSF mostly controls.
Al Nahud also shelters displaced people fleeing from Al-Obeid, Umm Kadada, Khartoum and El-Fasher — the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Darfur Victims Support Organization.
Meanwhile, in North Darfur, the fighting has killed at least 542 people in the last three weeks, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. This figure includes the recent RSF attacks on El Fasher and Abu Shouk displacement camp, which killed at least 40 civilians.
“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Türk i n a statement on Thursday.
Türk also mentioned “extremely disturbing” reports of extrajudicial killings committed by RSF, with at least 30 men in civilian clothing executed by the paramilitary fighters in Al Salha in southern Omdurman.
“I have personally alerted both leaders of the RSF and SAF to the catastrophic human rights consequences of this war. These harrowing consequences are a daily, lived reality for millions of Sudanese. It is well past time for this conflict to stop,” said Türk.
The war in Sudan has killed at least 20,000 people, but the real toll is probably far higher. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries.
Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and warns it could spread further, putting millions at risk of starvation.


Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

Updated 02 May 2025
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Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

  • The sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people

TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Friday handed down lengthy prison sentences against former officials, including former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, a senior figure in the opposition Ennahda party, on charges of facilitating the departure of militants to Syria over the past decade.
TAP state news agency quoted a judicial official as saying that the sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people.