… As 14,818 Syrians at the Nizip refugee camp, South Eastern Turkey, recount their ordeal
Turkey’s sixth most populous city, Gaziantep has been sharing in the tears and blood flowing in the largest Syrian city, Aleppo, since the civil war erupted in 2011.
The war, which allegedly started after the Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the peaceful protests in support of the Arab Spring by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning more, had killed and injured about 2 million people. According to United Nations, not fewer than half of the country’s population, 12 million people, mostly civilians, have been displaced from their homes and about 4 million women and children are seeking asylum in Turkey and neighbouring nations.
As more souls are wasted on a daily basis, residents seek asylum in camps established for refugees in Turkey. The official report by the 17th wealthiest nation in the world puts the figure of the displaced persons at about 5 million, the highest in any European countries.
A visit to the Nizip camp captures the tears, sorrow and ordeals of the refugees in the South Eastern Turkey. It also warns that the adversity faced by the refugees should be seen as a signal for Nigerian government and its citizens, especially those fueling the activities of Boko Haram insurgency.
On the sides of the camp are woods scattered with few Pistachio trees, interspersed with olive groves. Slightly beyond Nizip on to the left, the road meanders up the hills and when it descends, Behold you are welcome to an expansive container camp. At the foot of the camp is the historic Euphrates River, its pristine waters spying on the sorrows of 14,818 refugees in the camp.
LEFT ALONE
At the main gate of the razor-wire fenced camp, a dog and her six puppies roam aimlessly. On the left side of the entrance, a young boy, Ahmet plays, scooping sand between pressed concrete floor tiles and dumps it a short distance away.
Just as our correspondent was asking his guide details of the 3 years old, who had lost his parents to the Syrian war, the boy sat on the floor staring into the space ahead, his face has no expression and that made it difficult to know whether he was staring at the woods or clusters of little girls tossing on some playing equipment on the field.
Ahmet is one of about 10,000 of such children in Nizip camp. Many of them are orphans while some parents do not know whether their wards were alive or killed during air strikes that left many with disabilities. Yet, the number increases daily as more persons seek asylum at the camp, which is about 40 km to the Syrian border.
Another orphan in the camp is Jibril. Unlike Ahmet, the approximately 6 years old boy was full of life. While his peers were running from the correspondent, probably because he is black or they were just shy, the brave boy, who was flushed out from his childhood in Aleppo, caught up with the reporter.
The fine young refugee, whose front teeth have fallen off in a strange land, was inquisitive but his language betrayed his cause. We cannot understand each other, he nags and followed all through before I later found he was interested in a glossy paper one of the tourists was holding in her notes. As soon as the Kenyan tourist gave him, he disappears in the same manner he came.
The adults were not left out in the boredom, confusion and bitterness. They are not bitter with the Turkish but Syrian government as some of them, who spoke with The Point, alledged that the al-Assad administration is an enemy of the state. A Syrian trader, Ibrahim, 55, sat alone by the door of his container apartment thinking.
Many times he sits alone like that, not wanting to interact with anyone since he got a news that his oldest son was killed in a missile attack. A staff in the camp, Mustapha, a Turk, said, “People’s presence around him does not mean anything to him because he is always in deep thought and sometimes ‘nag’ when children tried to play with him.”
On this Wednesday afternoon, however, appeared to be one of the few days he was in his best moods in 2016 as he narrated his ordeal in the hand of ISIS insurgents- the killers of his wife of 30 years, three out of four sons and their wives. “I have no reason to live after losing all to the war except for my son that absconded from the camp to Nigeria. The Turkish government had done a lot to accommodate us but nowhere can be like one’s home,” he told The Point.
TEENS KICK
Meanwhile, some of the refugees, especially the one in their twenties are not happy with rules and regulation of the camp. A great number of them were finding it difficult to live in the camp, as they narrated their plights to our correspondent. Another Syrian refugee, Youssef, 22, said, “It’s like a prison. We cannot come and go easily.
It’s very restrained. We can only leave between the hours of 5 am to 3pm. Once you leave, you can only return between the hours of 6pm to 10pm. If you arrive after 10, you’re not allowed back in. “If you are caught, you receive your first warning, so it’s not an immediate deportation. That means they take away your entrance card, popularly called ‘kimlik’ in Turkish. That means you’re stuck in the camp for ten days.
Then you get a new card. But if you’re caught again, you will be forced to go back to Aleppo.” In the case of Mohamed, 24, life in the camp is almost same as Aleppo after the war. Speaking in low tone, he pleaded we hide behind a container to ensure nobody saw us during the interview. To him, if the camp authority found he granted an interview, he might be shown the way out of the camp.
After his father was murdered, Mohamed lost his hand when a rocket hit a truck convoy he was driving and six souls perished, save for him. “That’s when I decided I had to leave. I smuggled myself into Lebanon and stayed there for two months. But I was constantly being questioned there, so I came back to Syria and decided to go to Libya where I had some family and could get some medical attention for my hand, and then finally joined my family in Turkey,” he narrated.
But…
However, while most of the residents praised the Turkish government for its kind gesture, some alledged they are being maltreated and abused. Mohamed disclosed that some camp officials allegedly raped teenage boys and girls in the camp, a development he claimed the authority had turned its back on.
He said, “About 20 Syrian children had been raped between September 2015 and June 2016 in the camp and AFAD has failed to notice. Some of the boys were raped by a cleaner at the camp, who confessed that he lured children between the ages of eight and 12 to have sex with him in return for 2 to 5 Turkish Lira. While some of the affected families of eight children have made a legal complaint, others have not done so amid fears that they would be deported.”
NO CASES OF ABUSE- AFAD
Contrary to the allegations of child abuse and rape leveled against some officials of the camp, Elmis, who is also the spokesperson of AFAD, told The Point that there are no cases of such menace in the camp, which he described as one of the pride of the nation. “We can never harbour such crime.
Here, we are more careful and watchful over our Syrian brothers, in most cases more than we do for ourselves and that is the reason we ensure they are comfortable. It is home away from
