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jueves, 9 de agosto de 2012

Syrian refugees - where to?

Syrian refugees: a humanitarian crisis

Hend Kortam / July 22, 2012 / 1 Comment

As the violence in Syria flares up, Syrians fleeing to neighbouring countries face hardships.

Syrian-Kurdish refugee camp at Domiz in northern Kurdistan
AFP

At least 9000 Syrian refugees entered into the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq on Sunday, according to the Chinese Xinhua News Agency.

Yet, as thousands of Syrians flee their country to escape the violence; their situation seems to only get worse with Baghdad announcing on Friday that it will no longer be able to allow Syrians into Iraq, citing security reasons.

Ali El Dabagh, an Iraqi government spokesman said on Iraqi TV “We had hoped to help our Syrian refugee brothers,” according to AFP. It is estimated that the number of Syrian refugees in Iraq is between 5,000 and 8,000 according to various media reports.
Iraq is not the only country bordering Syria that no longer welcomes the entry of Syrian refugees. On Thursday, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Baraksaid that Israel will not allow Syrians to enter the Golan Heights should the Syrians choose to seek asylum there and that they will be stopped if needed, according to the Associated Press (AP).
In response to Ehud Barak’s statements, the Dublin centre for Amnesty International wrote a letter to the minister, urging him to ensure that anyone who is at risk of crimes against humanity or war crimes “be allowed to benefit from effective and systematic protection procedures and safeguards to prevent their forcible return to Syria where they may face serious human rights abuses.”
Amnesty international also explained that the statements were particularly concerning as violence in Syria escalates.

There are 120,000 Syrian refugees located in Syria’s neighbouring countries, according to France 24. Most Syrian refugees are in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, said Al Jazeera. There are almost 10,000 in Egypt. According to Reuters, the UN Refugee Agency expects the number of Syrians who will leave the country this year to be 185,000.

Syrian refugees

Syria: refugee crisis looms as 50,000 flee to Turkey

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey who have fled the escalating violence in their strife-torn homeland has reached more than 50,000, Turkish officials said on Thursday.

Syria: Assad regime launches new offensive against rebels as the UN talks

Syrian refugees at the Turkey- Syria border in Hatay Photo: EPA

12:36PM BST 09 Aug 2012

The total number of the refugees was 50,227 as of Thursday after more than 5,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey this week, the country's Disaster and Emergency Administration said in a statement posted on its website.

A Turkish foreign ministry official at the border told AFP some 2,300 Syrians including low-ranking military defectors fled to Turkey in the last 24 hours.

This week has seen a marked increase in the number of refugees making their way to Turkey amid escalating clashes in Syria's northern city of Aleppo.

Syrian regime troops battled rebels in central Aleppo on Thursday a day after launching a ground assault backed by air power for control of the commercial capital.

In addition to taking in refugees, Turkey is providing sanctuary to Syrian military defectors in a separate camp near the border where security is tighter.

Senior Syrian officers have been crossing into Turkey to link up with the rebel Free Syrian Army on an almost daily basis in recent months, often accompanied by rank-and-file troops.

Source: AFP

martes, 19 de junio de 2012

refugees flee syria for turkey

Syria refugee crisis lands on Turkey's doorstep

AFP

Sat, 31/03/2012 - 15:1

Photographed by AFP

Turkey is grappling with a refugee crisis stemming from the Damascus regime's military offensive against opponents as the country braces for a new influx of people fleeing the violence.
More than 17,000 Syrians have fled across the border into Turkey to escape President Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown on anti-government protests since the uprising erupted in mid-March last year.
The traumatised refugees are welcomed in camps described by local officials as "social life centres," which unlike those in Afghanistan and Somalia are aimed at boosting morale.
Menal, 33, who fled to Turkey in June 2011, went into shock after hearing that her house had been bombed and her relatives were killed by Syrian troops.
"I was taken to hospital every day and received intravenous drips," she said as she did embroidery work at a handicraft course in Yayladagi camp in Hatay province, only five kilometres (three miles) from Syria's northwestern border.
"I feel some sense of consolation here."
Turkish camps provide humanitarian aid including three meals a day, health services, clean water, and prayer rooms.
Gendarmes are deployed at the camps in charge of security, but refugees are allowed to go outside to do shopping and visit their relatives in nearby Turkish towns.
The camps also offer schooling for children with Arabic-speaking teachers giving lessons in maths, Turkish, computer science and Koranic studies. The sick and injured are treated at hospitals and women join handicraft courses.
While it says it is ready to extend any help for Syrians, Turkey also fears the number of arrivals could soar to the level of the half-million Iraqi Kurds who poured across the border to escape Saddam Hussein's repression during the 1991 Gulf War.
Turkish officials have contingency plans in the event of a larger-scale incursion as regime forces storm opposition towns near the Turkish border.
Currently, the government has set up nine locations including eight tented camps and a "container city" in Kilis, some 150 kilometres (95 miles) east of the Hatay camps, to deal with the influx.
Inhabitants of some camps in Hatay province have already been transferred to Kilis, where the prefabricated homes will initially receive 10,000 people.
East of Kiflis in Sanliurfa province, near the halfway point of Turkey's 910-kilometre (560-mile) border with Syria, another massive camp is under construction that can house up to 20,000 people.
While the mass influx is bound to have lasting consequences, Turkey is clear it does not want to see the Syrians as permanent residents and refuses to call them refugees.
"We call them Syrians under temporary protection, not refugees," Suphi Atan, head of the foreign ministry's task force in Hatay province, told AFP.
"They are deprived of the right to apply for refugee status. We expect them to voluntarily return to their country once the situation is secure," he said. "But we cannot compel any Syrians to go back."
Initially, the government had described them as "guests" to emphasise the temporary nature of their asylum in Turkey but later dropped the term because "there is no guest status in international law," Atan said.
Some of the Syrians have already applied for asylum in Turkey, Metin Corabatir, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Turkey Office, confirmed.
But his office, in close coordination with Ankara, had to turn down the asylum requests because the temporary protection status is applicable in international law, he told AFP.
The concept developed in the 1990s when European Union countries maintained an open-door policy for thousands of refugees who poured in from Bosnia during the 1992-95 war during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's year-long crackdown on anti-regime protestors has left more than 9,000 people dead according to the United Nations