Ever since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries has consistently increased. According to Hürriyet Daily News, more than 10,000 Syrians were given camp on the Turkish borders in mid-2011. In mid-2012, this number increased to 40,000. According to the Refugees and Asylum Seekers Assistance and Solidarity Association (RASAS), the number of registered Syrian refugees in Turkey equaled 3,630,702 at the beginning of November 2020. Despite the Turkish government closing its borders to refugees and even beginning the construction of a wall in 2014, the migrations did not stop.
Despite being clamped together with over 3.6 million other Syrians, each refugee has his or her own story to tell. Each refugee’s answers to questions such as ‘why did you leave the country?’, ‘how was your trip?’, and ‘how do you feel about the choices you made?’ are unique. Some refugees have built homes and earned citizenships abroad, while others were taut with dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction has caused many thousands of refugees to return. According to the New York Times, the flow of refugees back to Syria had already started in June 2011, three months after the uprising had begun. However, despite these returns, the number of registered refugees continues to increase.
“I did not want to kill. I just wanted to find hope again.”
Yaman Shreqi, a 25-year old computer engineering student at Beykent University, relayed his experience crossing the borders illegally. Having started his education in 2013 at the University of Aleppo, Yaman was struggling to keep up with his classes. Although he had chosen the computer engineering department himself, he stated that it was hard to focus when the professors’ teaching skills were very poor, when there was no electricity to light a bulb, and when he did not know what his future would hold. The increasing sense of despair left Yaman spending most of his money on games and most of his time playing them. “I did it to escape reality. That is how I spent most of my time,” he said. Having missed most of his junior year classes, Yaman failed that year and was left facing three choices: to try again knowing that he did not have the drive to study, to give up and be enlisted in the military, or to leave everything behind and seek refuge. When asked what drove him to choose the third option, he said, “I did not want to kill. I just wanted to find hope again.”
Initially, Yaman’s father, Muhammad Shreqi, had been against the idea of sending his son away, Yaman recounted. Most of all, his father had been against sending him to western countries, where he had claimed the common values were too liberal for his liking. The only destination he had even considered, said Yaman, was Turkey, where he felt the cultures and values were similar. Muhammad knew that failing another year would mean Yaman’s conscription, in which Yaman would be forced to kill, but Muhammad lacked the money that Yaman needed to cross legally, which led him to allow his son to cross illegally. In 2017, Yaman left his house and headed for the Orontes River, where a smuggler was waiting for him.
Yaman’s journey was not an easy one. On his first try, it took him two hours to reach the Turkish borders, in which he rid a barrel through the river, then booked a bus to from Hatay, a border city in Turkey, to Istanbul. On his way to from Hatay, he was caught by the police and signed a document that declared his consensus in give up his temporary protection identification document (a refugee card more widely known among Syrians as Kimlik). The document was in Turkish, a language he did not know at the time. It took him fifteen days after that to be able to cross the borders again, each day using a different route, facing several hardships, and going back on his tracks to try again the next day.
Currently, Yaman is working with his uncle as a jewelry manufacturer. He earns his living and pays for his education. Although he is still facing issues regarding his Kimlik and its reissuing, which is also affecting his education, and although he sleeps, works, and studies in the same place, he says that he is much happier in Turkey than he was in Syria, and that he is glad he made the choice to settle in Istanbul.
“We were ordinary people, but we were blessed with many miracles.”
The Alrajle family, consisting of nine individuals, was one of the families living in Ghouta, Damascus, during the Syrian government’s siege of the area in 2013. “We were ordinary people, living ordinary lives when all of this started. Suddenly, we are sharing a piece of bread in order to survive, while others steal and kill in order to provide for their families. Some women even resorted to prostitution in order to earn a living,” relayed Huda Alrajle, 40 years-old, mother of eight children. During the famine, Huda’s son, Abdulghani, joined the Free Syrian Army to earn some money and feed his family, while her husband, Muhammed Alrajle, looked for a richer second wife who had more resources and could assist them in survival. His second wife, Yasmin, whose last name was not disclosed, had children of her own.
On a seemingly regular day of walking to other areas or villages to get food but not finding any, Huda and Abdulghani arrive at home to hear loud noises. While they had been used to the sound of rockets and missiles every once in a while, they felt that this day was going to be different. “Indeed, it was,” said Huda. “That day, the sounds of missiles did not stop. But somehow, my youngest children did not wake up. I let them sleep, so that if they died, they would do so in peace,” said Huda about that day. “It is a miracle that we survived the siege, and yet another that we survived that day.” According to Huda, part of the ceiling of their house fell right next to her youngest son, but none of them were harmed.
Finally, after the famine and the bombardment, news came of salvation. Green buses, which were often used by the Syrian government in population transfers, were readied for those willing to step out of the Free Syrian Army’s territory and into the government’s. Despite the possible risks, which included conscription and detainment, the number of people who wanted the ride was so immense that it was hard for the family to find a space for them to fit into. Thanks to Abdulghani’s position in the army, the family was able to transport 4 of its members to Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria. As the bus passed through pro-governmental territory, civilians threw tomatoes and eggs at it and cursed at the ‘traitors’ who had settled in the anti-governmental territory. Once Huda, Muhammad, Asma, and their younger sister arrived in Idlib, where the bombardment was much worse than in Ghouta, they waited for the rest of the family to arrive, wondering if they ever would. With another miracle, in 2018, the whole family arrived safely in Idlib.
However, that was not the last of hardships that the Alrajle family would face. In 2019, the second eldest daughter in the family, Asma, had a systemic lupus erythematosus flare-up, and she was hospitalized in Afrin, where adequate medical supplies were available and her aunt lived. She had been diagnosed with the autoimmune disease in 2011 and had been on a medical regimen that was later interrupted by the lack of supply in the country. Asma struggled as the decision was made to transfer her to Kilis, a Turkish border city, to get proper treatment. Meanwhile, the bombardment in Idlib took the lives of Muhammad Alrajle and one of his and Huda’s daughters.
“Leaving the country had not crossed our minds before then. We were too big of a family, and we had nowhere to go even if we left the country. But because my daughter needed to be treated, we had no other choice,” said Huda as she explained why they had decided to cross the borders to Turkey. Leaving one dead child and another married one behind, Huda, with her herniated disc, walked for hours while carrying her newborn. “We fell behind the others,” said Huda. “Had it not been for my other children, I would have given up. I could not carry my newborn much longer. Luckily, the group had come to a stop not too far ahead. Anything could have happened on that road. It is a miracle we survived.”
Now, Asma is undergoing treatment in Istanbul and living with her family. Her brother, who had suffered a head injury in Syria, got into several accidents while working in food delivery service, then decided to quit. Now, he is working on manufacturing masks in the pandemic. While seeking refuge was not an option for the family before 2019, it is a reality now, and they are grateful that they at least have each other. As a closing statement, Huda thanked God for the miracles he had granted her family. “Like I said, we were ordinary people, but we were blessed with many miracles, and, for that, we are very grateful.”
Y. Al Nayal 