Abbas Albakour waits at the Cilvegözu border post (south). This Syrian refugee, survivor of the earthquake that devastated southern Turkey, wants this time to return home to the yet unstable province of Idleb.
After fleeing the war, many Syrian families who had been living in Turkey sometimes for years saw their lives devastated again by the February 6th shock wave.
“In Syria, the problems have been going on for twelve years. But right now, the biggest disaster is in Turkey,” the 48-year-old Syrian father said on Friday, accompanied by his children and a pile of luggage.
The family lived until the night of February 6 in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras, not far from the epicenter of the earthquake which killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Their house was reduced to nothing: “In one minute, everything collapsed”, says Abbas Albakour.
At his side, hundreds of people line up – men, women and children -, also eager to cross the border to return to the country.
A few hundred meters from them is the Syrian region of Idleb (north-west), held by jihadists and where more than three million people live in precarious conditions.
Turkey this week authorized Syrians placed under “temporary protection” in one of the eleven Turkish provinces affected by the earthquake to leave for a maximum period of six months. Creating a draft at the border.
-after fleeing the war-
Nearly 3.7 million Syrians have found refuge in Turkey after fleeing the war that has ravaged their country since 2011, and which has left nearly half a million dead.
The eleven affected Turkish provinces alone are home to 1.74 million refugees, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“If we don’t move forward, I’m going to faint,” says Albakour, who has been waiting in the snake-like queue for more than ten hours.
Many are with family and are waiting with large amounts of luggage until the customs officers allow them to pass.
Some are smoking, looking at their phones to pass the time when a van appears carrying four body bags, the bodies of earthquake victims repatriated to Syria.
Mazen Allouch, an official at the Syrian border post in Bab al Hawa, told AFP that the bodies of 1,528 Syrians had already been brought back to the country, to be buried in areas under rebel control.
“I lost four brothers in the earthquake and I’m going back to Syria for three or four months I think,” said Mohammed Bekush, 23, who arrived from Antakya, the major Turkish city in the region, 50 minutes from road and reduced to ruins by the earthquake.
“The situation must improve”, the return to Syria “depends on this”, adds the one who had lived for more than two years on Turkish soil.
Nearby, sitting on a pile of luggage, 60-year-old Futhaim Sahab waits for the crowd to get going. She too is trying to return, although she no longer has a home in Syria.
Arm in a sling, fractured in the earthquake, Khaled Shaieb explains that he “is going back to Idlib for a few months”.
“I arrived in Turkey ten years ago and everything was fine. Then the earthquake happened and everything was gone,” he says.
The Syrian says he is grateful to the Turkish authorities for the help received after the disaster — food, clothing, shelter.
“They didn’t say You are Syrian. You are Turkish. They gave everyone an equal share,” he says.
“If I find work and a situation, maybe I will stay there” in Syria, he says. “I haven’t seen my mother for seven years. So this earthquake isn’t so bad after all,” he replies.
“But first, I’m going to sleep for at least two months.”
02/17/2023 17:31:05 – Cilvegözü (Turkey) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
