Tag Archives: Resettlement

HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 04/06/2019

28th May – 2nd June

CC BY-SA 2.0 – W. J. Gauthier

Up to 300,000 civilians recently flee due to attack in northwest Syria – People demand the opening of Turkish border | Syrians returning for Eid al-Fitr fear prosecution in Syria | Migrants tortured by Greek police and pushed back to Turkey | Pushback-alike attack in the Aegean | Chased person dies at the Turkish seaside | Turkish police claim to break up “Europe’s biggest people-smuggling ring” | Hundreds of refugees misallocated as “not willing to become resettled” by UNHCR Turkey| Difficulties obtaining Syrian documents in Turkey | Report about African communities in Istanbul

News & Reports

Up to 300,000 civilians recently flee due to attacks in northwest Syria – People demand Turkish border to be opened

According to press-reports the situation at the Syrian-Turkish border is worsening. Between 200,000 to 300,000 civilians have recently fled due to attacks by Russian and Assad forces in northwest Syria. Most of them have sought refuge along the border with Turkey. Camps are already overcrowded, people have established new ones close to the Turkish border wall. Many of them are desperate and angry due to a lack of protection and the missing response of Turkey as well as international actors.

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 04/06/2019 →
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

Iranians Are Converting To Evangelical Christianity In Turkey

Fariba Nawa’s report conveys the issue of religious conversion among asylum-seeking Iranians in Turkey. Despite the slippery slope, she elaborates a fair representation of glocal dynamics as they relate to people’s asylum journeys, while avoiding to make short cut statements.

Via NPR

Pastor Karl Vickery prays for the Iranian refugee converts in a makeshift church for the United Pentecostal congregation in Denizli, Turkey.

by Fariba Nawa

In a hotel conference room in Denizli, Turkey, about 60 Iranians sing along to songs praising Jesus mixed with Iranian pop music. When the music stops, American pastor Karl Vickery preaches with the help of a Persian translator.

“I’m not famous or rich. But I know Jesus. I have Jesus,” he says, with a Southern drawl. The Farsi-speaking Christian converts shout “Hallelujah!” and clap.

Vickery, who’s part of a visiting delegation from Beaumont, Texas, then offers to pray for each person in the room.

Continue reading Iranians Are Converting To Evangelical Christianity In Turkey →

News Digest

Fleeing worsening war, Afghans find narrowing options in Turkey

Via IRIN

The Turkish city of Erzurum sits on an expansive green plain, ringed on all sides by towering mountains. Best known as a destination for winter sports enthusiasts, who flock here when snow blankets the nearby slopes, it is also a gateway for another set of visitors – Afghans uprooted by their country’s long and brutal war.

This article was originally published by IRIN

News Digest

The L.G.B.T. Refugees in Turkey Who Refuse to Be Forgotten

Riot police crack down on an L.G.B.T. rally in Istanbul, in 2016. Under the provisions of the country’s state of emergency, protest is effectively banned.
Photograph by Ozan Kose / AFP / Getty

Via The New Yorker – When you are a refugee, you learn all about the hierarchy of compassion. There are the people from war-torn countries—refugees from humanitarian catastrophes so enormous that they upend the world’s imagination, such as those who have escaped from Syria. There are people who have fled a sudden campaign of violence and hatred, such as the gay men who have been escaping from Chechnya for the past year. And then there is you: unlucky enough to have suffered the kind of misfortune that can’t seem to hold onto a headline. From the officers of U.N.H.C.R.—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency that runs refugee-resettlement operations around the world—what you hear is this: “There is no country for you.” Continue reading The L.G.B.T. Refugees in Turkey Who Refuse to Be Forgotten →

News Digest

Syrian refugees leaving Germany over family reunification policy

Via Deutsche Welle – Syrians granted limited asylum but denied the right to fetch relatives are departing Germany for Turkey by using smugglers, say German media. The cases, if confirmed, bizarrely reverse the “Balkan route” drama of 2015.

Refugees in Germany

Thousands of Syrian refugees are attempting to leave Germany despite being legally entitled to stay, according to a report to be aired Thursday on German public broadcaster ARD.
Continue reading Syrian refugees leaving Germany over family reunification policy →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Greece to speed up migrant transfer after Turkey deal

Via EurActiv – Greece will speed up the relocation of thousands of migrants from its overcrowded islands to the mainland before the onset of winter after reaching a deal with Turkey, a key ally in helping to tackle Europe’s migration crisis, government sources said yesterday (11 December).

Athens persuaded Ankara last week to accept migrant returns, including Syrian refugees, from the mainland and not just from the Aegean islands as previously agreed under a 2016 EU-Turkey pact, a government source told AFP. Continue reading Greece to speed up migrant transfer after Turkey deal →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Large Number of Migrants and Refugees Leave from Lesvos; Migration Ministry’s Decongestion Plan in Full Progress

Via Greekreporter – Lesvos island decongestion plan is in full progress. 408 persons have left the island in the last 24 hours. 152 refugees and migrants left on Friday evening from the port of Piraeus while another 256 left with the ferry “Nissos Samos” on Saturday for the port of Heraklio, Crete. Continue reading Large Number of Migrants and Refugees Leave from Lesvos; Migration Ministry’s Decongestion Plan in Full Progress →