by Aloosh Devrim
-Syria-
Nada struggles to sleep amid the rapid and consistent blasts of artillery shelling and gunfire, a noise that has become commonplace in her Damascus neighborhood. She compares her life to Afaff’s, a friend who just called her a month after being smuggled into Holland.
“Why Holland?” Nada asks her friend. “Were you heading to Sweden?”
Afaff tells her it was easier to reach Holland. “The phone disconnected, reminding me that I was in Damascus where everything is inadequate,” Nada quips.
Her cell phone beeps again. There is a message from Afaff: “My trafficker advised that it would be better to change my destination to Holland where my family can join me easily.”
Holland may be an odd destination for a Syrian asylum-seeker, but for Afaff, the story is different. She found work with a Syrian-Dutch family that had migrated over four decades ago. Afaff feels at home with them and vice versa.
Daily life in a refugee camp in Atmeh, a Syrian Village bordering Turkey. Photograph courtesy of Flickr user İHH İnsani Yardım Vakfı/TURKEY and used under a Creative Commons license.
Afaff, 39 , a mother of two, used to be a schoolteacher in Damascus. She left the city after military shelling destroyed her home. According to UN estimates released over six months ago, 70 percent of Damascus has been destroyed while 83 percent of the entire country now needs reconstruction. Aleppo, a jewel of Syria for its riches, has literally been turned to rubble.
Nada, a 34-year-old with a PhD in computer engineering, took a three-month leave from her government job to live with her mother and sister in Istanbul, Turkey.
Her sister, a journalist, could not find her a job thanks to complicated bureaucratic procedures and the exodus of Syrian nationals in general. Owing to her limited choices in life, Nada decided to return to Syria and resume her government job for a monthly salary of less than USD $200.
Nada now resides with her sister in Jadida Artoz, a city on the outskirts of Damascus.
“We had left for Turkey with high hopes of a US attack against Bashar al-Assad and hoped to return after he was removed,” Nada recalls. Russia averted the threat of US attack by convincing the Syrian dictator to hand over all chemical weapons in September. The international community now faces the task of determining how and by whom the weapons shall be destroyed.
Last August Assad used sarin, a lethal gas classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction by the United Nations, to kill 1,200 Syrians in Zabadani, a city in southwestern Syria close to Damascus. Yet, US President Obama and his allies forgave the Syrian dictator for mass murdering Syrian civilians. Over 100,000 Syrians have lost their lives in the uprising, a great majority killed simply for opposing Bashar al-Assad.
The 34-year-old Syrian with short brown hair and pinkish skin has lost all hope.
“I am back at work despite spontaneous clashes between the Free Syrian Army and the regime forces,” Nada explains.
Turkey, it turns out, is not as rosy as it is made out to be by the news headlines crafted for foreigners. Command over the Turkish language is far more important than a PhD degree in a niche subject.
Nada says, “I could have gotten a job in an international university in Istanbul but it would have been a tough challenge for many obvious reasons.”
Today, Syrians can be seen sleeping in the parks of Istanbul and begging in the streets of Gaziantep to Urfa and Mersin. Lebanon houses over 800,000 Syrian refugees while Turkey plays host to over 500,000.
Like many displaced Syrians, Nada and Afaff met in Istanbul at the Emniyet Müdürlüğü while applying for residence permits and became friends. The computer engineer was proud of her qualifications while the schoolteacher banked on her courage and contacts.
Afaff told Nada in their second meeting that her two children are with her husband in Damascus and she planned to attempt to reach Europe illegally.
“I warned her against the risky adventure but she was confident of her Iraqi trafficker,” says Nada. Afaff told her that she had no choice but to take the risk for a safer, better life.
“Afaff had told me that she could not buy bread for her children even though they had money … the area was besieged,” Nada recalls.
Many areas in Syria face food shortages after being besieged by the regime. Food and medicine are not allowed to enter areas like Zabadani and Yaromuk camps. For these reasons, some respected ulema (Muslim religious leaders) gave a decree that people in besieged towns can eat cats and dogs.
For the injured and the sick, there is no relief. Of more than 6.5 million internally displaced persons, less than a million are camped or living in territories under the control of the Free Syrian Army, where UN and other relief organizations provide food, shelter and medicine. There is limited or no humanitarian relief in the Assad-controlled areas.
Nada herself lost her fiancé at the hands of the Assad regime. In July 2012, Amir, a doctor by profession, was assassinated while operating on an injured local youth in his private clinic.
“Even a doctor is considered a threat to the regime,” Nada says before bursting into tears. Ironically, she prefers to be in Damascus rather than anywhere else.
Her friend Afaff sold her the gold to pay 10,000 euro to Al-Haje, a short, ugly, one-legged Swedish-Iraqi. He is an influential trafficker in Turkey, with a “good repute for getting the job done.” Afaff got word of him from a family on board a Beirut bus. She had contacted him and was advised to go to Turkey. He would be able to help then. “He had no fear that I could be from the Lebanese or Syrian intelligence agency and spoke in detail on phone with me.”
Afaff met Al-Haje in the presence of Nada’s brother. Haje did not hesitatate to ask for the hand of one of his sisters in exchange for a new life in Sweden.
“Ahmad got mad at him but did not say a word, respecting my situation,” says Afaff.
Afaff was given a Belgian passport. She had to dye her dark grey hair blonde and use blue contact lenses. She resembled the attractive, middle-aged European woman who had sold her a passport. It all looked quite normal.
Afaff’s travel plans were to pass through Senegal and Spain before reaching Sweden.
Afaff told Nada, “I can’t retreat, as I will lose my money. Everyone trusts him, so will I. Do I have a choice here? Of course not!”
She had even told Nada that she could be raped or killed but still would do anything for the children.
More Syrians have died en route to Malta, Egypt and even Australia than any other nationality over the past three years. Desperate to save their lives, they often forget the odds of starting a new life in Europe or Australia. Syrian NGOs say that, on average, a boat heading to Australia carries 10 to 15 Syrian nationals, including women and children.
In October, 206 Syrians and Palestinians were rescued and dozens of bodies recovered after their overloaded wooden boat capsized near Sicily en route to Europe from Libya. They were buried in Italy in nameless graves.
Nada is too timid to take up Afaff’s illegal path, yet brave enough to endure the gravest lawlessness in Damascus.
About the author: Aloosh Devrim is a young social media activist whose family struggled against Hafiz Al-Assad’s rule and policies. She has traveled to the Americas, Europe, and Middle East for work.
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