Tag Archives: Integration

News Digest

Syrian War Refugees Have ‘No Place Anymore’ as Turkey Pushes Them to Return Home

Molly O’Toole covers the complexity of a life between displacement and return for Syrian refugees in Turkey for Newsweek. Collating stories of several Syrian interviewees, the article highlights the challenges regarding the flight to Turkey, living conditions with severe barriers to registration, education, work and health, as well as the expectations on resettlement despite the rising discourse of ‘return’:

FE_Syrian Refugees_01_USE AS BANNER
Baraah Jajah, left, with her son Louai, 3, from Hama, Syria, at a tent camp in Reyhanli inhabited by Syrians, most of whom are agricultural workers. Photograph by Jodi Hilton

“The refugees face a no-win situation: If they return to Assad’s Syria, they risk conscription, disappearance and sectarian retribution, as well as an utter lack of basic services and opportunity. If they stay in Turkey, they face chronic uncertainty and destitution, as domestic and international politics turn against them.”

This article was originally published by Newsweek.

News Digest

Born in Turkey: Syrian children face uncertain future in new homeland

Migrant kids born in Turkey is a crucial and growing topic. 385,431 babies born to Syrian parents in Turkey between April 2011 and November 2018, according to official statistics. As mentioned in the report below many problems and risks emerge in this area: such as the the discriminative treatment migrant mothers face that may turn violent and traumatic during the labour, not having access to public hospitals (being refused, or being charged high prices) and therefore having to give birth in improper conditions, having difficulties to register the kids, and to receive health-care, education and other social services later on.

Via MEE, Ayse Karabat

Almost half of the 3.5 million Syrians in Turkey are children, according to UNICEF (AFP)

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Sham’s start in life was not easy.

“I was in labour. I was in pain, lying in the hospital bed, but the midwives did not help me,” recalls her mother Kawthar Muhammet, a Syrian now living in Turkey who uses the Turkish spelling of her last name, Mohammed. “They said to me, ‘You’re fleeing war and having sex?’ They called me names that I don’t want to repeat. They abandoned me.

This article was originally published by MEE.

News Digest

“We are afraid”

Via taz gazete – An article reporting on the situation of Syrians in Izmir and growing racist tensions and attacks. Available in Turkish and German.

Foto: Sevda Aydın. Suriye’deki iç savaşın hemen başlarında en çok göç alan bölgelerden biri Basmane’ydi.

„Ceplerinde dolarlar var ama bedava çorba içiyorlar“

Büyük İskender, gördüğü bir rüyanın ardından insanların eskisinden dört kat mutlu yaşayacağını düşünerek Kadifekale’ye bir kent kurmaya karar verir. Kadifekale’de şimdilerde eskisinden dört kat daha mutsuz mülteciler yaşıyor.

„Wir haben Angst“

In İzmir leben 140.000 Syrer*innen. Viele Einheimische sehen sie als Gäste, die irgendwann wieder zurückkehren sollen – manche greifen die Geflüchteten an.

This articles were originally published by taz gazette.
News Digest

European Court of Auditors’ (ECA) report critical on the spending of 3 billion Euros from EU on the Facility for Refugees in Turkey

As part of the EU-Turkey-Deal the EU offered a payment of 3 billion Euros until 2018. The way the budget is used has always been criticized, particularly because of the lack of transparency and efficiency in distributing the aids in a fair manner for those in need, both by the refugees and the actors in the field. Now in its final report even the EU’s ECA criticizes the distribution of the budget, stating that a large amount of it has been wasted due to a lack of efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore it clarifies that for a big amount of the EU-money it is unknown what it actually was spent on.

Once more it becomes clear that while in the context of the EU-Turkey-Deal the sealing of the European border to Turkey is effectively enforced, the promised support for the refugees in Turkey does often not reach them.

EU unable to fully trace €1bn spent on refugees in Turkey

Via euobserver – The EU is unable to verify with certainty how over €1bn of European taxpayer money was spent on Syrian refugees in Turkey because of Ankara’s data protection laws.

This article was originally published by euobserver.

Striking Audit Results by the EU’s ECA

Via AIMS Turkey – The EU’s European Court of Auditors (ECA) released their final report on the Facility for Refugees in Turkey yesterday. A short summary of the 63-page report, which contains quite astounding observations regarding the implementation of the EU-funded projects toward refugees in Turkey has been compiled by Y. Emre Küçükkaya and published by AIMS Turkey.

News Digest

How Syrian artists are livening up Turkey’s art scene

Via Al-Monitor – Syrian artists who have come to Turkey found it difficult to find platforms to showcase their work, but this may be changing slowly. The drawing of a stylized lion’s head dominates the small booth reserved for Arthere — a collective of Turkish and Syrian artists — at Contemporary Istanbul, the city’s huge art fair that brings together dozens of galleries from New York to Tehran to Istanbul every September.

This article was originally published by Al-Monitor.

News Digest

UNHCR ANNOUNCES TO END REGISTRATION PROCESS IN TURKEY ON 10TH OF SEPTEMBER 2018

On 12th of September UNHCR Turkey informed on Twitter that it will end the registration process in Turkey on 10th of  September 2018. Further information can be found on its homepage:

Via UNHCR  – The Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM), as the national authority entrusted by the Law on Foreigners and International Protection, is responsible for registering and processing international protection applications. UNHCR has provided support to DGMM during its formation process, including registration of international protection applicants and referral processes. This is to give notice that as of 10 September 2018, UNHCR will stop registering foreigners wishing to apply for international protection in Turkey. Continue reading UNHCR ANNOUNCES TO END REGISTRATION PROCESS IN TURKEY ON 10TH OF SEPTEMBER 2018 →

Other Resources

The banality of evil and the normalization of the discriminatory discourses against Syrians in Turkey

Via Aysecan Terzioglu in Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia 4(2): 34-47 – This article discusses the ways in which discriminatory political, social and cultural discourses and practices against the Syrian forced migrants affect the health of Syrians in Turkey. It also contends that though these discourses and  practices stem from the current political environment, they are also related to complex and problematic interactions between Turkey and Arab countries in the past, particularly the clash between Arab and Turkish nationalisms. Continue reading The banality of evil and the normalization of the discriminatory discourses against Syrians in Turkey →

News Digest

Turkey is selling a story about refugees, and the EU is buying it

Via Ahval News / Nurcan Baysal (from August 25)- Before the European Union and Turkey signed an agreement in 2016 to limit the number of Syrian refugees heading to Europe in return for aid to help those who had fled the war to Turkey, I was among a group of academics and activists who work on refugee issues in Turkey invited to Berlin to discuss the matter.

This article was first published at Ahval News

Other Resources

A Faithful Alliance Between the Civil Society and the State: Actors and Mechanisms of Accommodating Syrian Refugees in Istanbul

A new paper by Didem Danış and Dilara Nazlı on the mechanism and actors involved in accommodating Syrian refugees in Istanbuls district Sultanbeyli was published:

Reception, hospitality and integration are certainly the main challenges of the contemporary world, particularly for countries like Turkey which hosts more than 3 million refugees from Syria. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception practices of civil society organizations and the nature of these bodies’ relationship with state agencies by focusing on Sultanbeyli, a peripheral district of Istanbul. Based on a fieldwork conducted in this district, we present the functioning of various state and non‐state actors in order to uncover not only the role of NGOs, but also the nature of the relations between them and the state in terms of governance of refugee reception in Turkey. We thus argue that the reception of Syrian refugees is undertaken by a “faithful” alliance between the state and certain NGOs, a partnership where civil society assumes a supporting role to the state in refugee reception.

News Digest

Syrian refugees find Turkey more welcoming than western Europe

Most of the 3.5m Syrians in Turkey can at least work, but the future is precarious

 

Via The Economist – GAZIANTEP | Returning to Turkey from Germany with four children in tow was not easy for Faisl Alakrch, a 36-year-old Syrian. He had to use a people-smuggler to retrace, in reverse, the route he had taken the year before. His younger brothers have remained in Germany and are studying at university, but he wanted to work, and complains that “I could not do anything there.” Turkey, by contrast, has made it easy for him to operate. He was able to register a company and set up a café in Gaziantep, a city close to the Syrian border. He has now been invited to become a Turkish citizen. His six-year-old son speaks a mixture of German, Turkish and Arabic. Continue reading Syrian refugees find Turkey more welcoming than western Europe →

Reporting on the Turkish-EU Border Regime