When conservative German politician Jens Spahn urges Syrian refugees to return home out of “patriotic duty,” his words reveal more about Germany’s politics than about the Syrians themselves.
Tag: Syrian
The four million Syrians living in Turkey were already facing great difficulties, and the pandemic only made their lives more uncertain. But there’s another truth they know must face.
BEIRUT — Lebanon appears to be mobilizing for the mass return of Syrian refugees, disregarding warnings that conditions in their home country are not conducive to voluntary returns in safety and dignity. Last week, ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Lebanese President Michel Aoun asked the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to help secure the return of refugees. After the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) stated that it was not involved in last month’s return of around 500 Syrians from Lebanon due to conditions in Syria, the UNHCR’s representative to Lebanon, Mireille Girard, was summoned by the foreign ministry […]
HOMS – Akram al-Khoule and his 7-year-old son hold hands as they stare at the once familiar primary school building, now demolished, looted of its contents and stripped of its identifying markers. “This is where my children studied,” al-Khoule says in a melancholy voice. Al-Khoule returned to the Homs district of al-Khalidiye this year, after being displaced to the coastal Syrian city of Tartous for six years. He is one of 600,000 Syrian refugees and internally displaced people who are estimated to have returned to their hometowns this year – many of whom now face a barrage of problems trying […]
Some 31,000 Syrians have returned to their war-torn country from abroad this year and many are struggling to survive in a country they call home.
PARIS — Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer with black belts in multiple martial arts, has the skill and know-how to kill a man with his bare hands. He also has a big scary dog, as a pair of Japanese journalists were reminded before interviewing Putin on Wednesday. The journalists “grimaced” and “stood there frozen” […]
A growing number of Syrians have been trying to escape to Europe over the past year, some meeting their tragic ends after paying smugglers to cross the Mediterranean in overcrowded boats.
Once a backer of the Free Syrian Army, a harsh reality caught up with this father of three near Aleppo.
Evidence is piling up that the Damascus regime has used rape – of daughters in front of fathers, wives in front of husbands – as a targeted weapon.
IDLIB – On my trip to northern Syria a week ago, I asked my hosts lots of questions. Will the Syrian regime be able to recapture the liberated areas inside Syria? Are you better off with the regime returning to your area, or with the rule of the others, including those run by civilians, the Free Syrian Army or the al-Qaida-backed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? After all, many changes had taken place since my last visit in early July. The elected president of Egypt, a patron of Syrian refugees in that country, was removed from power by […]
DAMASCUS – A boy, who appears to be sitting in some sort of makeshift hospital, describes how his entire family was killed early Wednesday morning on an attack in their home in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. Below the video (courtesy of c.m.o algota) is a transcript of the child’s account: “First thing, my grandfather […]
AMMAN – The southern Syrian province of Daraa borders both Israel and Jordan — it is also considered the gateway to Damascus. With the strategic stakes so high, the area has seen fierce battles between regime and rebel forces since the early months of the conflict. As recently as April, the rebel offensive in Daraa […]
Authorities worry for the safety of the mostly young sign-ups, but also the risk that they return home radicalized — and set on striking targets in Europe.
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Erdogan Raises Stakes With Syria
HURRIYET, MILLIYET, PRESS TURK (Turkey) Worldcrunch ANKARA – Turkey shows increasing signs that it wants to raise the pressure on the neighboring regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A full week after a Syrian passenger plane was forced to land in Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to insist publicly that the jet was […]
HURRIYET, RADIKAL (Turkey), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch ANKARA – Turkish artillery has continued to target Syria for a second straight day, in retaliation for the shelling of a Turkish town that killed five people. Wednesday’s deadly mortar fire heightened tensions as it marked the first time that Turkish citizens have been killed as a result […]