Posts Tagged ‘refugees’
Syrian people: Welcomed all refugees since antiquity, without visa or conditions
Posted on: March 2, 2020
Syrian people: Welcomed all refugees since antiquity, without visa or conditions
سوريا البلد الام لجميع الشعوب المظلومة والمضطهدة من كل الدول و الاعراق و الديانات المختلفة ولم تنصب خيمة لاحد كما فعل جيرانها مع شعبها
عبد المولى الذياب shared this posts on Fb. 
The last “bastion” Baghouz town of Daesh fell: it had 65,000. Where the refugees are to be displaced?
Posted on: March 30, 2019
Where Do the Families of ISIS Fighters Go Now?
By Ben Hubbard
AL HOL CAMP, Syria — She left the Netherlands to join the Islamic State in Syria, and married a fighter here. He was killed, so she married another, who got her pregnant before he was killed, too.
Then this month, as the Islamic State collapsed, she surrendered with her son to United States-backed forces and landed in the sprawling Al Hol tent camp, which has swollen to the breaking point with the human remnants of the so-called caliphate.
“I just want to go back to a normal life,” said Jeanetta Yahani, 34, as her son Ahmed, 3, clung to her leg and shook with a violent cough.
The announcement a week ago that the Islamic State had lost its final patch of territory in Syria was a milestone in the battle against the world’s most fearsome terrorist network. But it also raised urgent questions about what to do with the tens of thousands of people who had flocked to join the jihadists from around the world and now have nowhere else to go.
Al Hol, a sprawling, isolated conglomeration of tents on rocky soil surrounded by a chain-link fence and armed guards, held about 9,000 people in December. As the Islamic State’s final territories fell, its population swelled to more than 72,000.
The population explosion has taxed the camp’s resources, leading to crowding and long lines for food, fuel and drinking water. (One of my teacher urged me to find another synonym to taxing: what would you suggest?)
On a rare visit to the foreigners’ section of the camp on Thursday, a team of New York Times journalists found a miserable international tableau of lost women and children.
Along muddy, trash-strewn lanes between rows of white tents, we heard groups of women chatting in English, Russian, French, Dutch and Chinese (and a single Irish woman?). We saw blond- and black-haired children playing together in the mud.
A German woman told me she had come to Syria with her husband, a doctor. Now she had no idea where he was, and she was stuck in the camp with a baby in her arms and a curly-haired toddler gripping her leg.
But she did not want to return to Germany, which she considered an infidel country.
“I don’t want to raise my kids in a society that’s totally corrupt, where every sin is promoted,” she said, declining to give her name.
It was better to tough it out in Syria, she said. “This is temporary. The afterlife is forever.”
Although the Islamic State no longer controls the vast territory that that once stretched across Iraq and Syria, the women in the camp still followed its rules, wearing black gowns and face veils with slits for their eyes.
Their clothes were dirty, the hems and shoes caked with mud. Many toted toddlers with hacking coughs and runny noses. Other children sold cookies and soda their relatives had managed to bring in, or stood in long lines for food, drinking water and gas for generators.
Al Hol is the largest of three detention camps run by the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria. Other camps dot Iraq and Libya.
Along with tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis, the Syria camps hold 12,000 foreign women and children, according to Redur Xelil, a senior official with the Syrian Democratic Forces, the United States-backed militia that fought the jihadists. The force also holds more than 8,000 fighters, including 1,000 foreigners, in its prisons.
A handful of places, including France, Russia and Chechnya have taken back tiny numbers of their citizens, mostly women, children and orphans. But most of the home countries do not want the caliphate’s former residents back, so they are stuck here, in a stateless, unstable territory.
The local administration lacks the resources to deal with them and worries that the paucity of international support could help the Islamic State reconstitute itself.
“There is little support, little response,” said Mohammed Bashir, a camp administrator.
This week, local officials called for the creation of an international court to try foreign fighters, but the idea has garnered little international support and the Syrian government would probably block it.
While determining the exact backgrounds of the women and children in the camps is difficult since many lack identification and use fake names, they are generally considered less dangerous than the men. But some were also combatants. And some still endorse the extremists’ ideology, making local officials reluctant to let them leave.
More than 9,000 of Al Hol’s residents are foreigners who are kept in a special section, which I visited with a photographer on Thursday.
As soon as we entered, women approached us to ask if we could help them return to their countries or find missing loved ones.
“Are you from the Swedish Red Crescent?” a woman asked, trotting away after I said no.
“I am from a country that no one knows about, so I will never get out of here,” said a woman from the Seychelles.
Spotting strangers in the camp, Lisa Smith, a former member of the Irish Defense Forces, said hello but declined to be interviewed.
Some women still clung to the jihadists’ ideology.
A 22-year-old Chechen woman who identified herself only as Um Aisha described life in the caliphate as “all very good.”
“There were brothers who believed in Shariah, an Islamic state, and it was not like this,” she said, pointing disapprovingly at two female aid workers wearing pants.
The woman’s husband was killed in an airstrike on the Islamic State’s final pocket this month, she said, but she did not think the jihadists’ project was over.
“Our brothers are everywhere, in Germany, in Russia, in America — we believe that al-Dawla al-Islamia will come back,” she said, using the group’s Arabic name.
Others expressed regrets.
Galion Su, from Trinidad, stood near the camp’s gate with her face uncovered, hoping to get out and look for her teenage son, who had been arrested by Kurdish forces in January.
Her husband brought them to Syria in 2014 and the couple divorced soon after, leaving her struggling to care for her son.
“I was like a whore in the Dawla,” said Ms. Su, 45. She had married four men, she said, each on the condition that they let her keep her son.
When the jihadists tried to force him to fight, she dressed him as a woman and fled, but Kurdish forces arrested him when they discovered the ruse, she said. Now, she had no idea where he is.
“I just want to be normal and go back to a normal society, sleep in a nice bed, eat nice food, watch TV and laugh,” she said.
Children make up about two-thirds of Al Hol’s residents. Some are orphans. Many described in detail and with little emotion how their fathers had been killed. All had witnessed violence, and some had been taught to practice it.
Camp officials say they are too busy scrambling to provide tents and food to offer schooling or other activities, much less to deal with people’s psychological problems or to re-educate children trained by the jihadists. The challenge is intensified because some parents still endorse the jihadists’ ideology.
“The mentality is the same. Nothing has changed,” said Mr. Bashir, the camp administrator. “The children are innocent, but when they end up in the camp, they will learn what their parents teach.”
As the sun set after a rare sunny day on Thursday, we found ourselves surrounded by hordes of children playing. A group of Turkish boys played a rowdy game of soccer while children from Iraq, Egypt, Russia and elsewhere pelted one another with fistfuls of gravel.
Standing atop a latrine, an Iraqi boy with a toy rifle shouted, “The Islamic State has invaded!” Training his sight on another child, he threatened, “I’m a sniper. I’ll shoot you in the head right away.”
Nearby, two toddlers got into a fight and fell to the ground punching each other while a 10-year-old boy who was missing his right leg looked on. He declined to give his name or say where he was from, and responded to questions with short answers.
How did you lose your leg?
“A plane. Shrapnel.”
What do you want to do now?
“Get a tent and stay in it. Or maybe a house.”
Where?
“I don’t know.”
Mustafa Ali contributed reporting.
Follow Ben Hubbard on Twitter: @NYTBen.
Note: Without the pictures, this is Not much of an article. With all the horrors and most States refusing to consider the repatriation of their citizens, I expected a few useful news Not covered by the media.
The long-time refugee, the Dalai Lama says Europe has accepted ‘too many’ refugees?
Posted on: June 4, 2016
Dalai Lama says Europe has accepted ‘too many’ refugees
Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, thinks that Europe has accepted too many refugees, saying that they should stay only temporarily and return to rebuild their home countries once the conflicts there have been resolved.
Speaking in Dharamsala in northern India where the Tibetan government resides in exile, the Dalai Lama said in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that “When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering.”
“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now,” he added.
He said that countries taking in refugees should take a healthy look at the situation and realize that it’s not possible for all of the newcomers to be integrated into European society, stressing that the main goal for Europe’s leaders is to provide them with temporary shelter.
“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany,” he said. “There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.”
When the first massive wave of migration began in 2015, the Dalai Lama praised states like Germany and Austria for welcoming refugees, while also stressing that every country can only provide decent living conditions to a limited the number of people.
Europe is currently facing its worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Some 1.8 million asylum-seekers illegally entered the European Union in 2015 fleeing war and poverty in Middle Eastern countries, according to data from the European Union border agency Frontex.
(Tiny Lebanon with a population of 4 million has received 2 million refugees with no substantial foreign aid to alleviate its tenuous infrastructure and services)
The Dalai Lama added that “from a moral point of view too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily,” explaining that they should “return and help rebuild their countries.”
The Dalai Lama, who himself has spent over half a century in exile in northern India, expressed hope that someday he will be able to visit Tibet again.
George Galloway MP commented:
The many faces of the Dalai Lama. A so called man of peace who keeps the company of western war criminals.
A man of peace who stands idly by while his co-religionists ethnically cleanse the Rohingya people in Myanmar (other than the occasional hypocritical word or two about things needing to be done). He has a moral authority (by virtue of his position) to be more vocal yet chooses not to be.
The hypocrisy has now entered the European refugee debate. This man, a refugee himself for half a century, says that Europe has taken in too many refugees!
Forget that refugees are dying by the boat load, forget that people are escaping war, forget that people are risking it all to escape death – no, this hypocrite of a man chooses to play the tune of the xenophobe!
He also says ‘they should return [be sent back] to rebuild their country’, a Noble thought if it were not for the fact he himself has not returned to rebuild anything!
Objects Refugees Carry on Their Journey to Europe
Standing at a refugee stop in the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf, near the Hungarian border, 17-year-old Ahmad explains that he no longer owns much of anything.
After fleeing their home in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, Ahmad and his family hope to end up “in Germany, Finland, Sweden” — whichever country will take them in.
As Ahmad recounts how his family had to abandon all of their belongings — carrying only small packs of clothing with them — he unwraps a chocolate wafer handed out by Austrian volunteers. And though he has next to nothing, Ahmad breaks the chocolate in two and politely offers me half.
Hanane Kai shared this link
Priceless!
This small, but remarkable act of sharing was something photographer James Mollison and I would come to witness over and over as we interviewed refugees on a recent trip to Austria. Though everyone we met had an urgent need — for a hot meal, for a working phone signal, for information — many were more than willing to share what little they did have, whether it was their time or their stories.
One by one, refugees agreed to stop and have their portraits taken by James, in a makeshift studio he had assembled in a tent, alongside discarded wool blankets and ruined articles of clothing.
We heard story after story of smugglers shepherding desperate refugees into tiny, ramshackle dinghies and then forcing them to throw their only bags overboard, in order to prevent the boats from sinking. “We did it to save our lives,” says Marie, a 32-year-old woman who had traveled from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As a result, many were left without papers or passports. Yet, amazingly, many people were willing to hand over, for a few instants, their last remaining possessions — a beloved watch; vials of insulin — so that James could photograph them.
Some people we met were even eager to show us what they carried: cell phones or digital cameras with photos of loved ones who they had been separated from during the journey. These devices, and the photos on them, held their greatest hopes of being reunited with a missing mother, a lost son or a wife, two-months pregnant and nowhere to be found.
Of course, there were also several people who were initially mystified by our assignment.
Why did James want photographs of old clothing or an ordinary phone charger? But once he explained that we wanted to capture what they thought was worth holding on to throughout the grueling and often dangerous route into Europe, people got it and recounted in even greater detail the stories behind their objects.
And even if they still didn’t quite understand our interest, many refugees would still hand over their bags with a smile, before they went on their way, onto the next leg of their journey.
James Mollison is a commercial and documentary photographer based in Venice, Italy.
Caroline Smith, who edited this photo essay, is a special projects editor at TIME.
Megan Gibson is a writer for TIME based in London. Follow her on Twitter @MeganJGibson.
Attempts to tempt the refugees to seek transfer to Arabic Gulf Emirates? Gulf states under pressure to take Syrian migrants
Posted on: September 6, 2015
Attempts to tempt the refugees to seek transfer to Arabic Gulf Emirates?
Those states that funded the terrorist extremist Islamic movements after the Arab Spring?
Gulf states under pressure to take Syrian migrants?
The same Palestinian diaspora process repeated 65 years later?
Rewan Al-Haddad – Avaaz posted:
This image of a Syrian baby lying lifeless on the beach is too heart-breaking to ignore.
But that is precisely what Gulf countries have been doing — refusing to give safe haven to desperate families fleeing war.
The Gulf’s refugee policy is our region’s shame. But now we have a chance to change that.
For years images of dead Syrian babies have covered our screens, but this image has shocked the world, and finally we have a chance to demand Gulf leaders respond with the humanity this crisis deserves.
Turkey has taken 1.8 million, Lebanon 1.2 (much more), and Jordan 600,000 Syrians, but Gulf governments haven’t taken a single refugee in the last 5 years!
The Gulf can do this, but won’t unless enough of us demand it.
Our community has over a million members across the region — if we all tell 10 friends, we could create the biggest Refugee Welcome campaign ever.
With no peace in sight to wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, South Sudan, Somalia… their choice to board a boat may be the only one they have.
Like millions of others, Baby Aylan’s family was desperate, so much that they were willing to travel all the way to Canada.
Their story is heartbreaking — they could’ve died from chemical attacks or barrel bombs, but instead Aylan and his family died drowning on their journey to safety.
If enough of us speak out, their tragedy can be the spark to help millions of others.
Gulf countries have given millions in humanitarian aid, and without that help, refugees in neighbouring countries would be much worse off. (Money Not going to the displaced people)
But money isn’t enough. Our region can share the burden of giving these families sanctuary.
And if enough of us support their cry for help, no more children need drown in the Mediterranean.
This is about our basic values and humanity. Governments everywhere are hearing the public’s outcry and opening their doors. It’s up to us to make it happen in our region.
Let’s demand that refugees get the safe haven they desperately need
Joanna Choukeir Hojeily shared this link from Katia Saleh
Gulf countries, Europe, you dirty hypocrites, why don’t you bare the consequences of your arms deals!!!? Stop drowning innocent children in the sea!
Alors que les drames des migrants se multiplient aux portes l’Europe, des citoyens des pays du Golfe se mobilisent sur les réseaux sociaux afin que leurs pays ouvrent leurs frontières aux réfugiés syriens.
“L’accueil des réfugiés syriens par les pays du Golfe est un devoir”.
Ce hashtag rédigé en arabe est devenu le slogan de ralliement d’un mouvement de jeunes des pays du Golfe sur les réseaux sociaux.
La campagne, qui cherche à interpeller les pouvoirs des pétromonarchies, a été lancée fin août, peu après la découverte d’un camion sur le bord d’une autoroute en Autriche, avec 71 cadavres de Syriens.
Selon un article publié sur le site de la BBC, ce hashtag a été utilisé plus de 33 000 fois sur Twitter au cours de la semaine dernière. Sur la page Facebook du mouvement, ses fondateurs expliquent que les pays du Golfe, en tant que nations arabes et musulmanes, sont plus “légitimes” que l’Europe pour accueillir les Syriens.
Ils rappellent que l’hospitalité est une valeur reconnue en Orient et qu’il faut surtout aider les Syriens au nom de l’islam.
La notion de solidarité islamique a toujours été présente, notamment en Arabie saoudite où des réfugiés politques islamistes avaient été accueillis dans les années 1970.
Deux autres hashtags en arabe sont également apparus : “ouvrez vos portes”, et “l’accueil des réfugiés syriens est une demande populaire “.
Ils ont été créées le jour où le monde entier découvrait horrifié la photo d’Aylan Kurdi, le petit garçon syrien mort sur une plage turque.
Des images choc, le fil twitter correspondant à cette campagne n’en manque pas. Les internautes s’en servent pour accentuer la pression sur les politiques : “au lieu d’inaugurer de nouveaux temples bouddhistes, accueillez les réfugiés syriens”, lance ainsi un internaute aux dirigeants des monarchies du Golfe sous un montage photo juxtaposant des images de l’inauguration et de migrants dans la misère.
“L’Arabie saoudite veut éviter de politiser sa société”
La campagne survient également au terme d’un été marqué par un afflux sans précédent de migrants et par plusieurs drames qui ont suscité l’indignation dans le monde et un vif débat en Europe autour de la question de l’accueil des réfugiés.
Un rapport d’Amnesty international, publié en décembre dernier, révélait que les monarchies du Golfe, Arabie saoudite en tête, n’avaient proposé d’accueillir aucun réfugié syrien.
Comment l’expliquer au vu de leur richesse ?
Dans un éditorial publié dans le magazine américain “Quartz” le 31 août dernier, le journaliste Bobby Ghosh estiment que ces pays devraient avoir honte. Intitulé “Salut l’Arabie saoudite : voilà ce que tu pourrais faire pour aider les réfugiés syriens”, l’article souligne que l’aide financière aux actions humanitaires ne suffit pas. Et qu’il serait d’autant plus logique que l’Arabie saoudite accueille des Syriens que le pays est habitué à gérer un grand nombre de visiteurs, tel que le pèlerinage de la Mecque.
Une position difficile à comprendre quand on sait que la monarchie saoudienne est un soutien déclaré de la rébellion en Syrie.
Seraient-ils rebutés par le système complexe en vigueur dans les monarchies du Golfe, qui exige des travailleurs immigrés qu’ils aient un garant local ?
Stéphane Lacroix, enseignant à l’Institut d’études politiques de Paris (IEP) et chercheur au Centre de recherches internationales (Ceri), en doute.
“L’Arabie saoudite a cessé de délivrer des permis de travail aux ressortissants syriens depuis le début de la guerre en 2011”, explique-t-il.
Selon le chercheur, “il y a une dimension politique très importante dans l’attitude des autorités saoudiennes”. “En tant que monarchie sunnite, elle ne pouvait que soutenir la rébellion syrienne, qui, vue du Golfe, a une dimension très communautaire”, remarque-t-il.
“Mais dans le même temps, l’Arabie saoudite veut absolument éviter de politiser sa société : elle craint qu’en accueillant des personnes extérieures politisées elle n’importe du même coup une rhétorique de changement qui contaminerait sa société”, poursuit-il.
Il insiste sur le fait que la décision de soutenir les rebelles syriens dès le début de la crise, soit avant l’afflux de migrants et l’entrée dans le conflit des jihadistes, démontre bien que c’est l’idée révolutionnaire qui effraie.
(As if we need expert European opinions to confirm the obvious in our region)
How can you help refugees? A few practical ways, starting today
Number of refugees has tripled from the beginning of this year (about 310,000), many of them are fleeing the ravaged Syria under ISIS control.
13 million kids are out of schools in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya.
9,000 schools are Not used as schools.
A new report from the United Nations refugee agency says that more than 2,500 migrants and refugees have died or gone missing this year while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
Joanna Choukeir Hojeily shared a link.
Here are some of the ways you can help at home.
Refugee children sleep in the surrounding green area of the Keleti railway station in Budapest
Make a donation
Most donations are not ending for refugees support
Make a financial donation to a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is doing related humanitarian work overseas. These could include:
● Save the Children: distributing essential items such as nappies, hygiene kits and food
● Red Cross Europe: providing emergency health services at central train stations
● Migrant Offshore Aid Station: dedicated to preventing migrant deaths at sea
● International Rescue Committee: improving living conditions by setting up camps
● The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR): providing water, mosquito nets, tents, healthcare
● Refugee Action: advice about claiming asylum, the asylum process, asylum support
● World Vision: providing food, water, shelter, education and psychosocial care
A displaced Syrian child is viewed in a makeshift camp for Syrian refugees only miles from the border with Syria in the Bekaa Valley
Get involved with grassroots groups
JustGiving has received more than 2,500 donations from 32 countries for Calais migrant fundraising efforts. Here are just a few of them:
● The Worldwide Tribe in Calais: Travel blog documenting the story of the people in the Calais ‘jungle’ is also connected to a crowdfunding site
● Glasgow Solidarity with Calais Migrants: Diane and Bob are driving to Calais with supplies
● North East Solidarity with Calais Refugees: Buying food, bedding and warm clothing
● Side by Side: A family in Thurrock helping with basic humanitarian aid
● Association Salam: 19-year-old Tom McElholm is driving to Calais with supplies
● Hummingbird Project: Driving regularly to Calais with nurses, legal aid, food kitchens
● Coach and Horses Soho: raising £5,000 to give the Calais migrants a decent meal
4 million Syrians have fled their country since the war began
Volunteer, donate, collect
● Calais Migrant Solidarity: organising aid from the UK to those stranded in Calais.
Includes details to find local groups for clothes collections and donations here and a UK-based Facebook group
● Doctors of the World: providing care to vulnerable people, advocating for rights to health
● Music Against Borders: appealing for people to donate musical instruments to Calais
● The Jungle Library: makeshift library set up at the camp at Calais. They need more books
● ‘Childhood bags’: fundraising to take books, toys and warm clothes to children
● Folkestone United: organising protests, taking donated goods to Calais in September
● Avaaz.org: lobbying local councils, providing language support, housing refugees
● Migrant Offshore Aid Station: dedicated to preventing loss of life at sea
● Sawa4Syria: working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon
A girl holds a balloon and a teddy bear in a holding area at Munich Hauptbahnhof main railway station on 1 September
Buy specific items for those who need help
● An Amazon wish list has been set up for people to buy specific items such as shoes and sleeping bags to be delivered to Calais as part of the appeal #KentforCalais and #HelpCalais. The truck leaves on 17 September
Germany has been more welcoming to refugees
Put your name to a petition
● The Independent’s petition for Britain to accept its fair share of refugees (More than 150,000 already signed up)
● Accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants in the UK
● 80 Syrian war refugees are waiting in Calais for their rightful and legal asylum in the UK
● Create a compassionate Euro-wide policy to deal with refugee migrants
Note: As you can see from these lists, they are mostly concerned with the Calais crisis.
Update this list with those organization targeting the Syrian and Iraqi refugees who are badly neglected
Adonis Diaries 