From war to disaster: Syrians in Turkey live in ‘a nightmare we can’t wake up from’

A vast camp of the Turkish emergency service AFAD has risen in the parking lot next to the Hatay Atatürk Stadium, an enormous concrete box with a red and white roof. Long rows of white tents flap in the wind. Thousands of residents of the southern Turkish city of Antakya, largely destroyed by the earthquakes, have sought refuge here. The Turks camp at the front of the stadium, the Syrians at the back. Between the tents in the Syrian part there are heaps of burning rubbish, with children running between them, some barefoot.

Iyed al-Qassem, a thin young man with sunken cheeks and a wiry beard, is talking to the neighbors outside his tent. He lived in the Narlica neighborhood, where now lies a vast burial field with dozens of new graves, no more than numbered wooden planks in the ground. “Our house collapsed after the second earthquake,” says Al-Qassem. “At the time I was working in a bread factory in Reyhanli. My wife and daughter don’t know how they survived. Eight of my relatives have died. The corpses of some deceased Syrians have been brought to Syria for burial. We buried our dead here in Turkey.”

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After two days among the rubble, Al-Qassem was able to arrange a lift to the camp. They have been staying there for three days now. But this afternoon they were told that the Syrians are being transferred to another camp, outside Antakya. “They decided to evacuate us after riots broke out between Turks and Syrians in the camp, such as in the queue for food,” he says. Imaging also plays a role. Because there is so much anger about the slow delivery of aid, the authorities prefer to keep aid to us a little out of sight.”

False rumours

The earthquake has sparked a wave of xenophobia in Turkey. Syrians have been accused on social media of stealing aid and looting damaged shops and homes in the disaster area. Anti-Syrian slogans like ‘We don’t want Syrians’, ‘Immigrants must be deported’ were trending on Twitter after the earthquake. “Disinformation always spreads quickly in times of crisis,” says Can Semercioglu of the fact-checking organization Teyit. “But we have never experienced such a deluge. There are many false rumors about Syrians in particular.”

The earthquakes have once again turned the lives of Syrian refugees in Turkey upside down. Many live in the south of the country, close to the Syrian border. There they had built a new life with a lot of pain and effort. Their living conditions had already deteriorated due to the economic crisis and high inflation, which fueled resentment towards Syrians. Now about half of Turkey’s 3.6 million Syrian refugees live in an area of ​​destroyed buildings, hospitals, roads, airports and factories.

There are many false rumors about Syrians in particular

Can Semercioglu fact-checking organization Teyit

Hatay province has been hit the hardest. The provincial capital of Antakya, where more than a thousand buildings have collapsed, has turned into a ghost town. Poor Syrians without families elsewhere in Turkey are staying in mosques or tent camps in the region. Some are even considering moving in with relatives in Syria for a few months, which the Turkish government approved this week. Syrians with a little money or a car have fled with their families to cities outside the disaster area, such as Adana, Mersin or Antalya. Rents have exploded there.

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In 2013, Tariq Abdulhaq fled from the Syrian province of Idlib to Antakya, just half an hour’s drive from his native village. In Antakya he ran a business that bought, repaired and resold used cars. But there’s nothing left of that. “After ten years, I considered Antakya my second home,” he says over the phone. “It was very difficult to start over after I left Syria. That will be even more difficult this time. Because when I fled Syria, I was alone. Now I have a wife, three children and a company that I am responsible for.”

Tent set up

Abdulhaq drove his Jeep to the Mediterranean coastal city of Mersin last week. Many entrepreneurs he knows from Antakya are looking for accommodation in Mersin. “But it was too busy there,” he says. Three families lived in one house. And they charged $1,500 a month in rent. That’s why I decided to go to Konya. But the situation is not much better there. I now rent an apartment for 550 lira (25 euros) per day. Maybe I’ll go back to Antakya tomorrow. My brother has a house in the country where he has set up a tent.”

Other Syrians have found shelter in Adana. In the historic center of the city is a neighborhood with Syrian restaurants, jewelry stores and clothing stores. There, a Syrian entrepreneur has cleared his business premises and opened it up to displaced people. Yoghurt soup is cooked on a one-burner stove in the stairwell. “We feel like we are living in a nightmare from which we cannot wake up,” says Heysem Hut, the owner of the building. He is sitting in a lounge where the Syrian opposition flag hangs on the wall. “First the war and now this disaster.”

The building houses about twenty-five families in small rooms with mattresses along the walls and an electric radiant heater in the corner. “Our biggest problem is not clothing or food, but shelter,” says Sheza Mekkiye, a large woman with a child on her lap. “There are shelters at schools and universities, but Syrians are not welcome there. When we want to rent a flat, landlords say they don’t want Syrians. Or they demand that we pay a year’s rent. Luckily we found this place on Facebook. But we can’t stay here forever.”

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Huseyin Shikhani, a bald man with bad teeth, lives in the same room with his family. He lived in Antakya, where he worked as a plasterer. “I had enough work, we had nothing to complain about,” he says. “Now I no longer have a home or work. We plan to leave for Syria tomorrow as we have nowhere else to go. My mother, brothers and sisters live in a village in Idlib. It’s a temporary solution. The Turkish government allows us to stay for three to six months. After that we want to go back to Turkey, because I see more future for us here than in Syria.”

Shelters have been created in schools and universities, but Syrians are not welcome there

Sheza Makkiye Syrian refugee

Nearly half a million Syrians, a quarter of the population, lived in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, hit hard by the earthquake. One of them is Yahye, who doesn’t want his surname in the newspaper. He tells on the phone that his house has been badly damaged. “There are big cracks in the walls. My daughter didn’t dare to go to her room anymore. That is why I have placed my family with relatives elsewhere in the city. Most of the neighbors have left as well, I’m the only one who stayed to help those left behind. I feel responsible. With the help of friends I try to arrange tents and food for the homeless.”

Solidarity

Yahye is also concerned about the anti-Syrian feelings that are stirring up some. “Some political parties are fueling polarization and trying to create problems between Turks and Syrians,” he says. “It’s fascism. But most people don’t let that affect them. Solidarity prevails.”

Yahye would prefer to continue living in Gaziantep. Because he feels at home in the city, which reminds him of Aleppo. “The castle of Gaziantep reminded me of the citadel of Aleppo,” he says. “It is a great loss that he collapsed in the earthquake. According to the governor, 3,000 houses in Gaziantep have been destroyed. It will take years to rebuild everything. I don’t have any plan for the future. This is our destiny, you can’t run away from it. It reminds me of the war. The confusion, the worry about the fate of family. Now we are in such an unsafe and unstable situation again.”