Neroz Hussein unhooks his laundry which hangs in the sun on the roof and forms a wish for the approaching Turkish presidential election: “May Erdogan win”.
The mother from Kobané, in the Kurdish-majority north of Syria, hopes that the Turkish president in power for twenty years will be reappointed on May 14 because, she justifies, “Recep Tayyip Erdogan will help us to stay here”.
Since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011, Turkey officially hosts 3.7 million Syrians – probably more than 5 million in total – who have fled the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Russian bombardments and attacks by the group jihadist Islamic State (IS).
On the eve of the election, the community, which for the most part lives under “temporary protection” status, fears the victory of the opposition candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu (Republican People’s Party, CHP), who promises the repatriation of Syrians “in two years”.
Neroz, 35, and her husband Adil Sheho, 38, arrived in Turkey in 2015: “Two weeks after we got married, Kobani was attacked by IS,” the man said.
Based in the town of Sanliurfa (south), 40 km from the Syrian border, the family considers Turkey to be its “second homeland”, smiles Neroz under his ivory scarf.
“Our four children were born here, they don’t know Syria,” confirms Adil. “At the beginning, we were welcomed but the situation changed because of the economy,” he worries as inflation exceeded 85% last fall and the Turkish lira sank.
“Even if they don’t fire us all at once, they will put pressure on us, demand papers, increase the rents, the bills…”.
In 2021, the CHP mayor of Bolu (north-west) had abolished social assistance and multiplied by eleven the water bills of Syrian refugees, and more than doubled the tax to register marriages in order to discourage them: disavowed by his party , he had to pay a fine.
But the episode struck the spirits.
Some 240,000 Syrians in Turkey have obtained nationality and therefore the right to vote, through investments (in companies, purchases of real estate, etc.) or, like Hussein Utbah, by studying.
Hussein, 27, naturalized in 2020, will vote for the first time but he is the only one in his family, and for the future of his mother Zara and his five siblings, he will vote Erdogan.
“With my friends, we share the same opinion: not just because we are Syrian, but because we see what he has done for the country,” said the mechanical engineering student.
Hussein gives no credit to the CHP when he speaks of a “voluntary and dignified return”: “We cannot go back and trust Bashar al-Assad”.
Arrived from Raqqa in 2015, after the irruption of the IS which made it its “capital”, the family does not plan to leave.
Zara Dogbeh, the 50-year-old mother, widowed three months ago, has started a popular home catering service in her neighborhood.
“We have already lived 2018”, the previous presidential. “But this time we are much more afraid: in every speech (the CHP) talks about sending us back”.
“They’re going to hunt us on a moonless night,” she slips. “Even our Turkish neighbors are afraid for us.”
In front of his permanence in Sanliurfa, the head of the CHP, Halil Barut, wants to be reassuring: “The most important thing is their safety, they are our brothers. We cannot throw them into the fire, send them back to war”, swears he.
“But with their arrival the prices of the houses, the rents increased, that harmed us”, he affirms, even if the Syrians provided a cheap labor to the Turkish textile, on the construction sites and in the ‘agriculture.
For Omar Kadkoy, researcher of the think-tank Tepav in Ankara, the scenario of a massive repatriation seems however “unrealistic”. “Even with the end of the war in Syria, it will be necessary to ensure security on the spot, but we are talking about disappearances, persecutions, kidnappings which continue”, he notes.
The researcher sees in the rhetoric on the “return” of the Syrians “a practical tool” of campaign, “rather than tackling pressing issues such as the economy, justice, democracy…”.
Omar Kadkoy also expects a very low turnout of Syrians able to vote, and mainly “by moral debt to Erdogan”.
“We’re not doing anything bad here, we’re useful to Turkey,” said Zara’s son and Hussein’s brother, Mohamed Utbah, 25, who rides his scooter to deliver orders before returning to his job as a caretaker. ‘building.
07/05/2023 10:51:15 – Sanliurfa (Turkey) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
