Syrians in the UK call for an end to Rwanda threats

Photo: Priti Patel meeting Syrian refugee children in 2017 when she was Secretary of State for International Development. Photo by Robert Oxley, DFID.

The UK’s Rwanda removals policy threatens vulnerable Syrians, survivors of torture and war.

With the UK Government continuing to threaten asylum seekers with removal to Rwanda, Syrian organisations in the UK have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Many were shocked and surprised when several Syrian asylum seekers were amongst the first to be threatened by the new removals policy. Syrians are known to be fleeing one of the most brutal regimes on the planet.

Incredibly, the UK’s Rwanda removals policy is being run by individuals with clear knowledge of the Assad regime’s brutality.

The current Home Secretary Priti Patel was formerly Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017, responsible for delivering aid to millions of Syrians who were forced to flee Assad and Putin’s bombs.

And the top civil servant at the Home Office, Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft, was previously responsible for Syria aid from 2018 to 2020 as Permanent Secretary for International Development, and he was the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2015 to 2018, where he spoke on the Assad regime’s use of torture and mass murder, its targeting of medics and aid workers.

Despite this, we have already seen Patel and Rycroft put asylum seekers in UK army camps—including Syrians, including injured survivors of Assad’s bombs, including survivors of torture—and we have seen them threaten asylum seekers with dangerous forced pushbacks at sea.

This Government has in the past welcomed tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. Amongst the first Syrian asylum seekers to be listed for removal to Rwanda were ones whose close family members had already been given refuge in the UK. But being Syrian is no protection from this Government’s range of threats towards asylum seekers.

The Rwanda policy is in the process of being challenged in the courts. At the same time the governing Conservative Party is in the process of selecting a new leader—a new Prime Minister for Britain. The press have been briefed that there will be no flights before that election is complete. That’s not good enough. It means the Government is still preparing for removals, still threatening and detaining vulnerable asylum seekers.

We believe the Rwanda removals policy violates the UN Convention for Refugees.

In short, the policy is illegal under international law. When a government puts itself above the law, it is on a path to tyranny, as we see in Syria. So our call is not just for the UK Government to act humanely, it is for the Government to respect the institutions of law and to suspend removals to Rwanda until after the final determination of the lawfulness of their policy, in national and international courts.

Below is the letter in full. PDF version here.

Syrians are targeted by the UK’s Rwanda deportation plan

Many Syrian refugees have found a welcome in the UK. But more recently, Syrians arriving in the UK have been amongst those asylum seekers put in army camps, and have even been locked up and threatened with deportation to Rwanda.

All of us, Syrian and non-Syrian, have an interest in stopping these offensive policies—they stir hate and racism against all asylum seekers and refugees, and threaten the cohesiveness of UK society.

Here we explain the latest developments in the UK Government’s Rwanda plan, and consider what Syrians and their friends can do to stop it.

What happened to stop the plane to Kigali on June 14th?

As we know, there are currently no legal routes to asylum in the UK, except for some people from Hong Kong, Ukraine and possibly Afghanistan. Because of our geography, everyone who crosses clandestinely into the UK can be deemed to have passed through another safe country. But because of Brexit, since December 2020 they cannot be returned to Europe. So, for a UK Government obsessed with its borders, that meant finding somewhere else to remove them to.

Israel started sending some of its asylum seekers to Rwanda in 2013—at first voluntarily, but in 2018 forcibly—after evidence that it led to more dangerous journeys instead of safety, compulsory transfers were discontinued after a few months.

Despite this dismal outcome, the UK chose to follow Israel’s example.

The first hundred men, randomly selected it seems, were given letters by the Home Office in mid May, indicating the ‘inadmissibility’ of their asylum claim (because they had arrived clandestinely) and their consequent removal to Rwanda. Anyone who arrives without permission from 9th May is liable to put on this list—initially men over the age of eighteen, but eventually everybody. And if they are granted asylum by Rwanda, they are expected to settle there.

How does this affect the Syrian community, and its supporters? Some of the early Syrian refugees from 2011 onwards were lucky enough to obtain visas (usually for study) and could claim asylum safely while in the UK. Then there was the Syrian Resettlement Scheme, which at first offered to take 500, but after the huge Refugees Welcome march in 2015, the UK Government promised to welcome 20,000 vulnerable Syrians from refugee camps in surrounding countries. But that was wound up in 2021, ostensibly on account of the covid pandemic. By then, over 19,000 Syrians had been accepted in the UK. Nothing has since replaced it.

Since then, Syrian asylum seekers have had no option but to take the dangerous journeys so deplored by the Government, and on arrival in the UK have faced an increasingly hostile environment. From September 2020 onwards, Syrians were among the hundreds sent to military camps at Pennally and Napier—indeed they were among the founders of CROP (Camp Residents of Pennally) whose campaigning led to the closure of that camp, and afterwards to similar attempts to organise the residents of Napier. (The struggle to close Napier is still ongoing).

Some of the original CROP members have founded a new organisation, Life Seekers Aid. Though it has a Syrian co-founder, Life Seekers Aid has few links with the more established Syrian community, but they are busy helping new arrivals, Syrian and non-Syrian, who are struggling in an ever-more hostile UK asylum system. Of the one hundred recent arrivals who received letters of removal to Rwanda, there were more than twenty Syrians, some of whom went on hunger strike in detention to protest their removal. So, Syrian asylum seekers have been at the heart of resistance to the most inhumane polices of this Government, and deserve our support.

Congratulations also to Action for Sama! With the Syria Campaign, they organised an email drop to MPs against the forced removals to Rwanda. Please add your voice.

Internationally, the Government’s abusive policy has drawn attention from Syrian human rights organisations and media. The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre wrote on why the UK’s controversial Rwanda scheme undermines international law. And Syria Direct has written ten things to know about the UK’s Rwanda deal, and has reported on the agony of two detained Syrian asylum seekers facing deportation.

Respite

There was huge relief last Tuesday evening at the last minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which forbade the removal of one asylum seeker in the UK on the flight to Rwanda. This led to the other six remaining on the flight applying successfully for court injunctions removing them, on the same basis. So the flight, now empty, was called off!

Despite its bluster, it now seems impossible for the UK government to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, according to its Memorandum of Understanding of April 2022, while its legality is being tested in the UK courts.

This could take many months—the first stage is due by end July—nevertheless the injunction forbidding removal is merely a respite, a temporary relief. And judging by the words of the UK judges to date, the prospects of a final favourable decision are not good.

Why should this be, in light of the formidable coalition of forces aligned against it?

The campaigners and charities which issued the judicial review were a representative sample of the 160 plus organisations which condemned the policy as ‘shamefully cruel’ in mid April.

One of the parties to the legal challenge is the trade union representing Home Office workers who would have to implement the policy.

The UNHCR, which the judges accepted as the primary arbitrer with responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the 1951 Refugee Convention, wrote a detailed analysis of the Government’s Rwanda policy in early June, which condemned it as seeking’ to shift responsibility’ and lacking in ‘necessary safeguards’ and as ‘incompatible with the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention’.


Some of the asylum seekers threatened with removal to Rwanda went on hunger strike, and others self harmed or attempted suicide.

Apart from those directly involved in the legal challenge, many others have expressed strong opposition, including:

• The Bishops of the Church of England
• Community based anti deportation campaigns
• The Prince of Wales
• The world renowned medical organisation ‘Freedom From Torture’

The opposition parties in Parliament, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and others, also oppose the Rwanda plan. But public opinion polls still indicate support from the base of the Conservative party.

Why is this relevant to a court challenge, where the law and legal precedent is supposed to trump public opinion? Because of the weight that the UK judges gave to the ‘public interest’, over the risk to asylum seekers, in considering whether to order a temporary ban on flights. Granted they considered only an interim measure, while the legality of the policy as a whole was still undecided by the courts. So the so called ‘balance of convenience’ in such cases might give more weight to untested Government assurances, than in the final judgment.

Nevertheless the High Court Judge placed great weight on the ‘legitimate public interest’ in ‘deterring asylum seekers from dangerous journeys’—the stated aim of the British Government; and despite the powerful UNHCR arguments to the contrary, found that the risk to asylum seekers in Rwanda was ‘very small’, at least in the interim period before the full case was decided.

Any balancing act between competing interests is obviously a discretionary judgment. This one depended on not examining the UNHCR report in any depth—the judge’s excuse being that he did not have time to consider it closely—and on ignoring the lack of evidence that the policy was or would be an effective deterrent to ‘dangerous journeys’.

But the judges at the Court of Appeal agreed, in refusing to find that the first instance judge’s opinion was flawed, despite the UNHCR evidence. As did the Supreme Court, in agreeing with the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court contented itself with assurances from the Home Office that should the final case go against the Government, the asylum seekers would then be returned to the UK from Rwanda.

The ECHR, more removed from British public opinion, took the UNHCR evidence more seriously. It decided to indicate to the Government of the UK, under Rule 39, that the applicant should not be removed until the expiry of a period of three weeks following the delivery of the final domestic decision in the ongoing judicial review proceedings.

“The Court had regard to the concerns identified in the material before it, in particular by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), that asylum-seekers transferred from the United Kingdom to Rwanda will not have access to fair and efficient procedures for the determination of refugee status as well as the finding by the High Court that the question whether the decision to treat Rwanda as a safe third country was irrational or based on insufficient enquiry gave rise to “serious triable issues”. In light of the resulting risk of treatment contrary to the applicant’s Convention rights as well as the fact that Rwanda is outside the Convention legal space (and is therefore not bound by the European Convention on Human Rights) and the absence of any legally enforceable mechanism for the applicant’s return to the United Kingdom in the event of a successful merits challenge before the domestic courts, the Court has decided to grant this interim measure to prevent the applicant’s removal until the domestic courts have had the opportunity to first consider those issues.”

(ECHR Press Release, 14 June 2022)

What next?

The Government will not give up this policy easily—it is the core of their new Nationality and Borders Act which outsources its responsibility for asylum, under the Refugee Convention. To save the policy, the Government is now threatening to join Russia, Europe’s outlaw, outside the European Convention on Human Rights.

But the UK judges could defeat it; we need to strengthen the judges’ hand and rally their courage, by persuading them that the damage done to asylum seekers is greater than the damage done to the Government’s prestige by the undermining of its post Brexit flagship policy. We know that the lawyers, who have already proven their dedication, will do an excellent job in preparing the case. But this will be a decision based on moral values, as much as on legal principle.

With the Bishops and the Prince of Wales already publicly opposed to the Rwanda plan, we might ask what more could we do to convince the judges that public opinion is against it? But the smaller and more radical organisations, for example the Stop Deportations, No Borders movement, had a significant effect by striking at the right moment, delaying the flight sufficiently to give the lawyers and judges time for their last minute interventions—the last person was ordered off the plane only 20 minutes before take off, after an hour’s delay to the schedule.

A cacophony of voices—influential and less so—will add to the noise that the judges will hear, despite themselves, when they sit in judgment at the end of July and after. So we hope to add to that noise, on behalf of the many Syrians and others arriving on our shores, still desperately seeking safety, and still fighting for their human rights after arrival.

Channel deaths: We need safe routes now

Six ways to create safe routes and save lives

We want to express our deep sorrow at the recent deaths of those trying to cross the Channel to claim asylum in the UK. From our solidarity work with Syrians we well understand what catastrophes they were fleeing from, and the additional anxiety and horror to their families of this new catastrophe.

We are sickened by official responses: the expressions of shock, as if this tragedy were not an inevitable consequence of government policies; the British and French blaming each other; both Government and Opposition blaming the smugglers who only exist because of the absence of safe routes to asylum.

We are sickened especially by Priti Patel’s lies about people crossing the Channel, describing them as ‘economic migrants,’ saying they are ‘elbowing out the women and children,’ even though the Refugee Council has shown from Home Office figures that 91% of channel crossers since January 2020 have been from ten nationalities with a strong likelihood of being granted asylum.

Most are fleeing from authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and Africa, tolerated if not supported by Western governments. The proposed solution of another Immigration and Nationality bill, which threatens to undermine the right to asylum and breach international law, will be ineffectual against such ‘push factors’ and will serve only to promote a climate of hysteria and populist authoritarianism in our own countries.

What we ask for instead is an acceptance of current realities and the creation of safe routes to claim asylum in Europe and in the UK, such as:

• The establishment of a UK consulate in northern France to accept and process asylum claims, with particular categories (those with family or other connections with the UK) given priority;
• The resumption of resettlement schemes from countries neighbouring the zones of conflict, under the auspices of the UN;
• A workable policy of refugee family reunion;
• Restoration of the ‘Dubs’ scheme to accept our share of unaccompanied minors in Europe;
• A process for urgently processing claims from persons at particular risk, such as military or interpreters who have worked for British occupation forces abroad, or NGOs funded by us;
• The allocation of sufficient resources for a humane and speedy asylum process.

It’s the least we can do.

Syria Solidarity UK

Amnesty vigil at Danish Embassy calls for continued protection of Syrian refugees

On World Refugee Day, 20 June, Amnesty held a vigil at the Danish Embassy in London calling for continued protection of Syrian refugees.

Between 2020 and 1 April 2021, Denmark has revoked or not renewed the residence permits of 380 Syrians, claiming that certain parts of Syria (Damascus and the Rif region) are “safe”. While many of them are waiting for their cases to be finally decided in appeal, 39 Syrians have already been put in a “return position”, meaning that they are at risk of being returned to Syria. Amnesty International believes that any return to Syria would be a violation of the international obligation of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from transferring people to a place where they would be at real risk of serious human rights violations. Read more from Amnesty.

The vigil was physically attacked by a lone counter-demonstrator, presumed to be from the Far Right. After he had broken a banner pole, he was restrained an removed, and the vigil continued with speeches.

Our words to the vigil:

“Greetings and solidarity from Syria Solidarity UK. Three of us spoke to the Danish ambassador here on seventh May when we presented a letter of protest from eight UK Syrian organisations.

“He said: ‘We had a moment of difficulty in 2015 when many asylum seekers came.’

“We said that was a moment of grace for Europe, when Europe opened its borders to Syrians, and it’s a shame that European leaders could not live up to it. Since then, there’s been a race to the bottom on asylum across Europe, and Denmark is in the lead. We are very afraid that other other countries will follow that bad example.

“We are not proud of what’s happening already in the UK, with Priti Patel leading an assault to asylum rights, including the use of old army barracks as refugee camps.

“But the good news is that—just as Syrians walked bravely through Europe’s borders in 2015—they are now organising and leading a fight back from the camps, with the help of dedicated NGOs like Care4Calais and others. Pennally is closed and we’ll see what happens in Napier after the great high court victory in June.

“And they’re leading the protests in Denmark too.

“Wherever there are Syrians there’s a fight back. The revolution still lives in Idlib but also in Copenhagen and in London!”

Protest at Danish government’s withdrawal of residence permits from Syrian refugees

Representatives of eight UK Syrian organisations presented a letter this morning to the Danish Ambassador, to protest at Danish Government actions in withdrawing the residence permits of Syrian refugees.

Danish authorities have withdrawn or not extended the residence permits of more than 250 Syrian refugees, justifying their actions with a report claiming that conditions are now safe in Damascus. Experts cited in the Danish report have rejected its conclusions, and say their views have been misrepresented.

Read the letter in full (PDF)

Add your voice: Tell them Syria is not safe

The letter stated:

This action by Denmark is based on a false assessment of the situation in Syria, and is in breach of international law and the principle of non-refoulement, which guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

It is in conflict with the stated policy of the European Union as laid out by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs in November 2020:

Conditions inside Syria at present do not lend themselves to the promotion of large-scale voluntary return, in conditions of safety and dignity in line with international law. The limited returns that have taken place illustrate the many obstacles and threats still faced by returning internally displaced persons and refugees, in particular forced conscription, indiscriminate detention, forced disappearances, torture, physical and sexual violence, discrimination in access to housing, land and property as well as poor or inexistent basic services.

The situation in Syria has not improved in the months since that judgement was made.

On receiving the letter, Ambassador Lars Thuesen said, “We are not forcing people to go back to Syria at this point.”

“But you are putting people in legal limbo,” replied Clara Connolly of Syria Solidarity UK.

Douna Haj Ahmed of the Syrian British Council said:

“Bombing and hostilities are not the only reasons that forced Syrians to flee their homes. Thousands of Syrians died under torture in the Assad regime’s prisons. Every refugee who is returned to Syria is under the threat of arbitrary arrest and death under torture, or of forced recruitment.

“Will the Danish government bear responsibility for the disappearance of any Syrian refugee deported to Syria, after entering the Syrian territories? Returning refugees is a crime against humanity and will remain linked historically to the decision of the Danish government.”

Afraa Hashem of Action for Sama said:

“Syria is not safe as long as the Assad regime is in it, and it is responsible for the crimes that occur in Syria. As a refugee like the Syrian refugees in Denmark, I need legal stability so that I can continue my life by studying and working, but I will not reach this stability if I feel that my residence is threatened by non-renewal.”

Photographs by Steve Eason

Atrocity prevention needs to be at the centre of UK strategy

The UK Government is currently carrying out an Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. Read more about the review, and how to submit evidence, here. The deadline for submissions is Friday 11 September 2020.

Syria Solidarity UK was pleased to contribute to a joint submission to the review by members of the Atrocity Prevention Working Group. Read the full submission (PDF).

Why should UK national strategy focus on atrocity prevention?

The core aim of UK defence and security strategy is to preserve the security and prosperity of the population of the UK and its citizens abroad. An effective defence and security strategy requires that atrocity prevention be included at its centre as an essential part of achieving this aim.

States and non state groups that enable, foment, or carry out mass atrocities are leading threats to UK security and prosperity. Their actions are not contained by borders. Not only do mass atrocities drive mass forced displacement, but attacks on personal security, social cohesion and rule of law in one state repeatedly come to undermine personal security, social cohesion, and rule of law internationally. States and non state groups involved in mass atrocities have an interest in undermining rule of law worldwide in order to maintain impunity and power, whether through attacks on international institutions by such states or through terror acts by such non state groups. The deliberate exporting of disinformation and the strategic exporting of corrupt practices are other aspects of this dynamic, threatening UK economic and political well being as well as the personal security of UK residents and citizens.

Acting consistently to prevent further mass atrocities and to tackle ongoing mass atrocities should therefore be a strategic imperative for the UK. This requires a review not just of how positive action by the UK can be timely and effective, but also of how current UK policies and actions contribute to enabling atrocities by allowing impunity for perpetrators.

How the UK fails to prevent atrocities in Syria

From the start of the current war in Syria, the UK has failed to put atrocity prevention at the centre of its response. Instead, the UK and its allies have focused on preventing WMD proliferation, focused on counter-terrorism, and focused on containing the effects of the conflict within the region but without actively protecting civilians or stopping large scale violence. The last nine years have seen failures in all these areas, failures that could have been limited or even prevented had the UK focused from the start on atrocity prevention.

Most UK military action in Syria is defined as collective defence of the state of Iraq against ISIS, not as humanitarian intervention, and civilian protection has been a secondary consideration to the primary goal of defeating ISIS. The UK military is tasked with avoiding civilian harm in Syria rather than with actively preventing civilian harm.

Humanitarian intervention was invoked by the UK Government only in 2018 to bomb chemical weapons facilities, but given the far greater number of civilian casualties inflicted by the Assad regime’s use of high explosive than its use of chemical weapons, this intervention was clearly less an act of civilian protection than of counter proliferation. The helicopters and jets used by the Assad regime for both chemical and conventional bombing of civilians were all left untouched by the UK’s 2018 action.

At the same time as UK aircraft were in Syrian airspace to fight ISIS, the UK failed to act in 2016-2018 to airdrop aid to Syrian civilians besieged by the Assad regime. In that same period, DFID was funding the use of humanitarian drones for medical supplies in African countries, and UN agencies were carrying out airdrops to regime held Deir Ezzor using JPADS remote guided parachutes. These technologies could have been used to at the very least bring medical aid to civilians suffering under Assad’s starvation sieges. Detailed viable proposals for large scale airdrops of food aid using drone aircraft were also put forward and rejected by the UK Government.

The UK’s failure is ongoing. As we have repeatedly highlighted, the UK-US Coalition and UK ally Jordan have been complicit in the forced displacement of civilians from Rukban camp, located in an area under Coalition military control.

The UK has failed to bring to trial British-born individuals accused of complicity in atrocities, some of whom are currently imprisoned by UK ally the SDF, a non-state armed group. The UK has failed to investigate and charge British-born Asma Assad for complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and financial crimes where the UK has jurisdiction over UK nationals abroad. The UK has failed to impose sanctions on Russian individuals with command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.

UK-US Coalition forces have failed to make themselves accountable to civilian survivors of the Coalition’s military campaign in Raqqa and elsewhere, thereby worsening the normalisation of mass violence in Syria, and reinforcing an expectation of impunity for perpetrators on all sides.

The consequences of failure

Today ISIS no longer controls significant territory in Syria, but the Assad regime’s reign of terror continues, with mass detention and torture of civilians, secret executions, and the forcible displacement of half the country’s population. Assad’s military is still carrying out attacks on civilian homes in a last pocket of opposition controlled Syria in the northwest. And the regime’s deliberate targeting of civilians, of homes, schools, and hospitals, has driven millions of people to flee across borders.

As long as the regime remains in power, and as long as the various military forces in Syria can act with impunity, the vast majority of Syrian refugees won’t willingly return. Yet here in the UK, we find members of the same government that failed to prevent atrocities in Syria now making political attacks on refugees who try to find safety in the UK.

Political attacks on refugees are damaging to refugees themselves, damaging to their prospects of integration in the UK, and damaging to the UK’s wider social cohesion. Ultimately this dehumanising rhetoric risks setting conditions for future atrocities here in the UK.

Precedents set in Syria have normalised mass violence by states, normalised the dehumanising of survivors and the deliberate fracturing of societies. Today, no continent is safe, and we see a very real prospect of worse to come.

For a safe and secure future, the UK needs to protect people from mass atrocities.

The UK needs to make accountable those responsible for atrocities, and UK forces and agencies need to be accountable to affected populations.

And the UK needs to work to prevent future atrocities, at home as well as abroad.

Questions and answers on the war in Syria and the crisis in Idlib

An Assad regime helicopter in flames over Idlib after being shot by Turkish-backed forces, 11 February 2020. Photo by Ghaith Alsayed, AP.

The Syrian war has lasted nine years, and can be hard for many to understand.

We have written the following guide to help understand the war, and the current escalation in Idlib province. If you find it useful, please share on and on .

If you would like to write to your MP about any of these points, you can email them via writetothem.com.

• Why is there still a war in Syria?
Nine years after the first demonstrations of 2011, the Assad regime continues to pursue a forcible displacement strategy against a population that rejects its rule, deliberately bombing civilians to force them to flee.

• What caused the crisis in Idlib?
The Assad regime and its ally Russia broke a demilitarised zone agreement with Turkey, attacked population centres, and advanced into Idlib province, forcing a million people to flee to the Turkish border.

Two thirds of Idlib’s population are there because they were forcibly displaced from other parts of Syria.

• Why can’t people in Idlib escape into Turkey?
Refugees in Idlib are trapped across the border from Turkey by the border wall, built with EU financial investment to stop refugees from entering Turkey as part of the deal to keep refugees from Europe’s borders. They are unable to find safety from air attacks and are living in hazardous conditions. Some people trying to cross the border have been shot and even killed.

• What can be done about refugees in Greece and Turkey?
The UK is complicit in the crisis facing refugees in Greece and in Turkey due to past failure to protect civilians inside Syria and its role in developing hostile EU refugee policies. The UK should urgently resettle significant numbers of vulnerable refugees from both Turkey and Greece.

• What are Turkish forces doing in Idlib?
Turkish forces have been striking Assad regime military targets to force them to withdraw to a boundary previously agreed under the 2018 Sochi deal, a line delineated by Turkish observation posts.

UPDATE

On 5 March 2020, Turkey’s President Erdogan met Russia’s President Putin, and they agreed a ceasefire. The terms failed to achieve an Assad regime withdrawal to the 2018 Sochi line. As a result, over one million people recently displaced in Idlib will be unable to return home, as it is unsafe for them to return to towns now held by the Assad regime where they would risk abuse, forced conscription, detention, torture, and death.

See map below.



• Would an Assad victory allow refugees to return home?
No, in the case of an Assad victory, most of the six million refugees outside Syria would not feel safe to return, and millions more would try to flee Syria.

Nine out of every ten civilians who have been confirmed killed in the Syrian conflict were killed by the Assad regime and its Russian allies, according to human rights monitors. (See chart below.) As well as civilians killed by bombing and shooting, tens of thousands of civilians have been imprisoned, tortured, raped, and murdered by Assad regime security branches.

• What is the most urgent need for people in Syria?
The most urgent need is for civilian protection, firstly in Idlib, and also across the rest of Syria.

• Is humanitarian aid the best response?
Humanitarian aid is vital, but can’t stop attacks on civilians or stop forced displacement.

• Can the UK and allies stop Assad attacking civilians?
The UK could consider how best to support NATO ally Turkey in order to reduce the threat to civilians from Assad military forces, for example by directly supporting Turkish efforts to impose a no-fly zone against Assad regime bombers.

Turkish forces are currently the only UK ally on the ground in Idlib with the capacity to protect civilians from Assad regime military attacks.

The Assad regime sees the conquest of Idlib and displacement of its population as essential to its own future, and therefore diplomacy without the backing of force will fail. Assad has broken every previous agreement, and no enduring ceasefire can be established without enforcement.

• What about the Turkish government’s human rights abuses?
The Turkish government has one of the worst records on imprisoning journalists. Turkish action in the Afrin region of Syria led to the displacement of thousands of Kurdish residents. Turkish-backed forces in northern Syria have been filmed murdering unarmed prisoners.

However, the UK and its other allies are themselves implicated in human rights abuses that have caused the deaths of thousands of Syrian civilians, including refugees drowned in the Mediterranean due to hostile EU policies, civilians besieged and killed in the Coalition’s Raqqa offensive, and civilians starved in Rukban camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border.

The UK and its allies all need to work constructively to drastically improve the human rights performance of all parties, and to protect civilians inside Syria and protect refugees fleeing Syria.

• What about Russia?
The UK could introduce targeted sanctions against those Russian individuals who have been identified as having command responsibility for targeting hospitals and civilians.

While Assad regime officers and ministers have been sanctioned, and some Russian individuals have been sanctioned in connection with Russian aggression in Ukraine, no sanctions have been imposed on Russian individuals for their role in crimes in Syria.

• Can the UK and allies act when the Security Council is divided?
The Security Council has not authorised action to enforce a ceasefire or end the conflict. However Security Council Resolution 2139 (2014) demanded “that all parties immediately cease all attacks against civilians, as well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment…”

The UK has previously asserted that use of force in a humanitarian intervention is permitted on an exceptional basis even without Security Council endorsement.

• What else can MPs do?
There is a wide lack of understanding of what is happening in Idlib, and the reality of people’s lives there. Fact-finding missions to Idlib by MPs could help bridge the gap in understanding. There have been recent visits to Idlib both by senior UN staff and by senior US representatives.

• What else should the UK Government do?
To aid understanding, the UK Government should publish assessments of the probable consequences of failing to act to protect civilians in Idlib, both immediate humanitarian impacts and the wider political, economic, and military consequences for the region, Europe, and the UK.

• What about the future?
The UK has up to now followed a policy of containment on Syria, but containment has failed in every year of the conflict, in terms of refugee outflows, widening security threats, and widening political and economic impacts beyond Syria. The UK urgently needs a new comprehensive strategy to guide Syria policy.

Beyond the immediate need for civilian protection, lack of accountability is the central cause of the conflict. A peaceful secure future demands that individuals, armed groups, and governments can be held accountable, within Syria as well as internationally. The UK should give much greater support to accountability mechanisms, including inside Syria’s borders where possible.



Chart: Nine out of every ten civilians who have been confirmed killed in the Syrian conflict were killed by the Assad regime and its Russian allies, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

Urgent request to invoke European Directive on Temporary Protection

[PDF version]

To M. Charles Michel
President European Council
Rue de la Loi 175
B-1048 Bruxelles
Twitter @eucopresident
Fax +32 22816934

Cc: Sir Tim Barrow, UK Ambassador to the EU
Twitter @UKMisBrussels

2 March 2020

Dear M. Michel,

URGENT REQUEST TO INVOKE EUROPEAN DIRECTIVE ON TEMPORARY PROTECTION
We are extremely concerned at the chaotic scenes on Europe’s frontiers, as desperate Syrian refugees attempt to enter Greece and Bulgaria, following Turkey’s recent decision to open its borders with the European Union.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Syria has had enormous consequences for its neighbours over the last 9 years, with Turkey Lebanon and Jordan bearing the largest burden of refugees; and among European countries Greece, and Italy.

With the latest massing of Syrians fleeing from Turkey, it is clear that the EU–Turkey Statement has broken down. Europe has reached the threshold of risk envisaged by the Directive’s creators—i.e. ‘a mass influx of displaced people’ with a risk of the standard asylum system in any one country being unable to cope with the demand. The basis of the Directive is the principle of solidarity among member states, and the sharing of responsibility for any emergency, across the Union.

All member states except Denmark have signed up to the Directive. We are copying in our Ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, to remind our government of its responsibility.

You, M. Michel, as President of the European Council, have primary responsibility for making the crucial decision. We ask you to take all necessary steps (including consultation with the Council of Ministers) to trigger the Temporary Protection Directive immediately and as a matter of emergency.

This could open the borders to Syrian refugees and displaced people, put an end to the cruel and chaotic situation facing them, and establish an orderly and equitable process to shelter them while the risk to Syrian citizens from their own government remains. The scale of the crisis—the humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century—demands no less of us all.

Yours sincerely
Batool Abdulkareem
Syria Solidarity UK

Stop forced deportations from Turkey to Syria

Cross-posted from The Syria Campaign.

Arabic version.

Turkish version.

Dear Commissioner Hahn, High Representative Mogherini and High Commissioner Filippo Grandi,

We, the undersigned Syrian and international human rights organizations, are writing to ask you to urge the Turkish authorities not to deport Syrian refugees from Istanbul and other cities to Syria, where they face a real risk of detention, torture, and death.

On 20 August the Istanbul governor's office announced that Syrian refugees in Istanbul who are registered under the country's temporary protection policy in other provinces must return there by 30 October. Turkey's Interior Ministry has also said that unregistered Syrians found in Istanbul will be sent to other as yet unspecified provinces in Turkey. Since late 2017, Istanbul and nine other provinces have stopped registering newly arriving Syrian asylum seekers, forcing many to live in Turkey without a temporary protection permit.

In addition, in recent months, xenophobic sentiment towards Syrian refugees in Turkey has escalated , fueled in part by hostile rhetoric from politicians across the political spectrum who have promised voters to send refugees home.

Since mid-July, activists and human rights organizations have documented many cases in which the authorities have arrested and detained registered Syrian refugees outside their registered province. The arrests have included those traveling from other parts of Turkey to their registered provinces, as well as unregistered Syrians. The authorities have coerced Syrians into signing “voluntary return” documents before deporting them to Syria.

In July and August, 6,160 and 8,901 Syrians — both registered and unregistered — were deported to Syria from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, according to the Syrian immigration authorities' website. This is a significant increase compared to previous months and coincides with the July policy change. These figures may also include Syrians intercepted and deported shortly after they crossed into Turkey, a practice that has been going on for a number of years.

Reports from media and activists in touch with our organizations confirm that the Turkish police have beaten detainees, denied them medical care and, in some cases, sent them to Idlib and northern Aleppo, where more than 1,180 civilians have been killed since February 2019, according to the local monitoring organization, the Response Coordination Group.

By deporting refugees and asylum seekers to a war zone or to areas where there is a real risk of persecution, Turkish authorities are in violation of their obligations under international law, and specifically the prohibition on refoulement. The Syrians being sent back not only face being caught up in the offensive in Idlib governorate but are at risk of arrest and torture at the hands of the Syrian government or armed groups.

Syrians we have spoken to describe how afraid they are now in Turkey. They stay at home to avoid arrest, including once they have returned to the cities where they were registered.

In August, the EU announced a further € 127 million to boost its Emergency Social Safety Net program for refugees in Turkey. In total, the EU has pledged € 6 billion in refugee funding to Turkey, while the UNHCR continues to support Syrian refugees in the country.

However, neither the European Commission, EU member states, nor UNHCR have spoken publicly about these deportations, despite the clear risk that large numbers of Syrians in Turkey's cities now face. They should press the Turkish authorities to stop all forced return of Syrians, including an end to coercing Syrians into signing voluntary repatriation forms, and to give those already deported to Syria the option to return to Turkey.

Member states, the European Commission and UNHCR should also commit to increasing their presence in Turkey's removal centers to ensure that Syrians are not coerced into signing voluntary repatriation forms.

If needed, they should support Turkish authorities to register unregistered Syrians and ensure ongoing financial support to Turkey to better protect Syrian refugees.

We also urge EU member states to resettle significant numbers of Syrian refugees from Turkey.

Sincerely,

11.11.11
Adopt a Revolution
Cairo Institute for Human Rights
Dawlaty
Human Rights Watch
Irish Syria Solidarity Movement
PAX
PÊL- Civil Waves Bell - 
URNAMMU
Syrian British Council
Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression
Syrians for Truth and Justice And Justice
Syrian Network for Human Rights
Syria Solidarity UK
The Syria Campaign
Women Now for Development

Come to the Freedom Across Borders conference, 6 July in London

Freedom Across Borders is a conference on 6 July in London being organised by Syria Solidarity UK with Amnesty International UK, the Syrian Legal Development Programme, Dawlaty, Migrants Organise and others.

We’re going to be talking about refugee experiences in the UK, in Europe, and in the countries neighbouring Syria.

We’ll be talking about surviving trauma, and seeking justice.

We’ll be looking to connect Syrians’ experiences with others in the UK who have been forced to cross borders in their search for freedom.

Rouba Mhaissen of Sawa for Development and Aid will tell of their work with refugees in Lebanon. Reem Assil of Common Purpose will talk about their diaspora leaders programmes, including with Syrians, and Zrinka Bralo will talk about bringing her experiences as a Bosnian refugee to her work with Migrants Organise.

In our Survivor Strategies workshops, we’ll be talking to people from Freedom From Torture and Art Refuge UK about surviving trauma, and we’ll have a discussion on security challenges for activists.

We will be talking about preserving Syrian memory, about Dawlaty’s work archiving Syrian oral history and about Qisetna’s work with Syrians on telling personal stories, and about Positive Negatives’ work with survivors of several conflicts, presenting personal testimony in the form of comics.

Syrian refugees who reach the UK are survivors of perhaps the biggest crime scene this century, so we are working together with the Syrian Legal Development Programme on legal accountability issues. Women Now for Development will talk about justice and accountability from a feminist perspective. Airwars will be explaining their work on reporting casualties from international military interventions in Syria.

To see the latest on Freedom Across Borders, visit the website.

To join us on 6 July in London, register via Eventbrite.

Below: From Khalid’s Story, one of a trilogy of short comics collectively titled A Perilous Journey, illustrated by Lindsay Pollock for Positive Negatives in 2015.

An evening with ‘Syria’s Disappeared’ and ‘Suspended’

Saturday 27 January 2018, 18:30–21:30
St James’s Piccadilly, 197 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LL

Syria Solidarity UK and The City Circle invite you to join us for a screening of Syria’s Disappeared. It tells the hidden story of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who’ve been disappeared in Syria. This will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Sara Afshar.

The evening will end with a beautiful musical performance by Sana Wahbaa on the Qanoon, a key instrument in Syrian music.

The screening will take place in the vicinity of Arabella Dorman’s art installation, Suspended, which highlights the plight of Syrian refugees.

Proceeds will go to the Starfish Foundation and Syria Solidarity UK.

The film screening starts at 7pm sharp.

Book via Eventbrite.

Facebook event page.



‘Suspended’ by Arabella Dorman. Photo by Tim Ireland, via It’s Nice That.

Stop The War’s ongoing attempts to silence Syrian refugees

On Friday 7 April, Stop The War activists attempted to silence the voice of a Syrian refugee at their London protest by amplified chanting with megaphones.

Hassan Akkad is a survivor of Assad’s torture prisons. The vast majority of Syrian refugees have fled the Assad regime’s violence.

Stop The War has repeatedly shut out Syrian voices. It is time for public figures linked to Stop The War, such as Michael Rosen who has shown great concern for refugee rights, to now distance themselves from this bullying behaviour.

The Assad regime’s chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun drew condemnation from across the world, but no major action from the Stop the War Coalition, which opposes any action including sanctions against the criminal Assad regime.

Stop the War says that it is against all UK and US military intervention in Syria. But when the US bombed Syrian civilians in the al Jina mosque in Aleppo province in March, where were the protests from Stop The War? When the Coalition bombed displaced people sheltering in al Badiya school, west of Raqqa, where were the protests from Stop The War? Now that Assad’s airfield is hit, they take to the streets. Their actions suggest that they have greater care for preserving Assad’s killing machine than for protecting civilians.

They say ‘Don’t Bomb Syria.’ It seems they really mean ‘Don’t bomb Assad.’

It is time for all honourable anti war campaigners to separate from Stop The War.

See also: Rethink Rebuild Society condemns ambivalence of ‘Stop the War’ to Assad’s war.

Below: Hassan Akkad talks of his experience of Stop The War.

I made this clip to clarify what happened with me yesterday when I tried to voice my opinion at @STWuk protest in #London pic.twitter.com/QQd8CxDwR0

— Hassan Akkad (@hassan_akkad) April 8, 2017

Refugee family reunion workshop for Syrians

For Refugee Week 2016, we piloted a new project: an immigration workshop offering practical advice to Syrian refugees on family reunions. There is a lack of free legal advice for refugees and asylum seekers wishing to bring their families to the UK. Many of those who have found sanctuary in the UK fear for the safety of loved ones still in Syria or in neighbouring countries. We aim to hold more workshops in partnership with Syrian community groups around the country.

Our workshop provided refugees with guidance in English and Arabic, now available as a PDF with clickable links to take you to useful web pages.

View and download the PDF: Refugee family reunion workshop for Syrians.

The legacy of Syria

THE EU VOTE AND UK POLITICAL FAILURE ON SYRIA


David Cameron now has little time to right a shared legacy of failure on Syria.

Reasons for the UK’s narrow vote to leave the EU are many. One is Syria: Both the Leave campaign and UKIP connected fears over immigration to the Syrian crisis. Assad’s war against Syria’s population has created the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

In or out of the EU, we have a duty to care for refugees. We also need to understand that this refugee crisis is not caused by EU rules on free movement; it’s caused by the failure of world leaders, including Britain’s leaders, to stop Assad.

Inaction has consequences. At every point when world leaders failed to act against Assad, the impact of the Syrian crisis on the world increased. The failure of British Government and Opposition leaders on the EU vote is in part a consequence of their failure on Syria, but this story doesn’t end with today’s result. Without action, Syria’s crisis will continue to impact on us all.

Leaders failed to act in October 2011 when Syrians took to the streets calling for a no-fly zone.

By the end of 2011 there were 8,000 Syrian refugees in the region.

Leaders failed to act in 2012 when journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were killed reporting from the horror of besieged Homs.

By the end of 2012, there were nearly half a million Syrian refugees.

Leaders failed to act in 2013 when the Assad regime massacred as many as 1,700 civilians in one morning with chemical weapons. That August, there were 1.8 million registered Syrian refugees.

Also in 2013, the UK failed to act when the Free Syrian Army faced attacks by ISIS forces infiltrating from Iraq. Instead of strengthening the FSA to withstand this new threat, UK MPs denied moderate forces the means to defend themselves.

By the end of 2013, there were 2.3 million registered Syrian refugees.

Leaders failed to act in 2014 as the Assad regime ignored UN resolutions on barrel bombing, on torturing and besieging civilians. Diplomacy without military pressure only emboldened Assad to continue the slaughter.

By the end of 2014, there were 3.7 million Syrian refugees.

Leaders failed to act in 2015 as Russia joined Assad in bombing hospitals, humanitarian aid convoys, and rescue workers, and Syrians were denied any means to defend themselves.

By the end of 2015, there were over 4.5 million Syrian refugees.

Now the UK Government is failing to act as Assad breaks ceasefire agreements and breaks deadlines on letting aid into besieged communities. The UK has failed to deliver on airdrops. The UK has failed to apply serious pressure to stop Assad’s bombs.

There are now 4.8 million Syrian refugees in the region. There are many millions more displaced inside Syria. Just over a million Syrians have applied for asylum in Europe, but that is a fraction of the total who have fled their homes.

The refugee crisis is just one impact of Assad’s war on Syrians. Voting to leave the European Union won’t insulate Britain from further effects of Syria’s man-made disaster. This crisis can’t be contained and must be brought to an end, and it can only end with the end of Assad.

Act now. Break the sieges. Stop the bombs. Stop the torture. Stop Assad.

The line between life and death is a VISA

By Raed Fares, via Facebook

If you were a journalist sharing the reality of what’s going on in Syria, and you are on the front lines of death, the regime might try to bomb you, people might try to assassinate you, in order to silence and kill the truth. This makes sense to us. The criminal wants to kill those who share the crime to the world.

But what we can’t understand is how countries considering themselves friends, which support freedom of press and democracy, stand in the way of someone and his life, letting him die, because of a visa. Khaled al-Essa is in need of a visa to Germany.

Khaled al-Essa, a Syrian journalist who was sharing the reality from inside Aleppo, showing the crimes of Assad and ISIS, in the end when they assassinate him for showing the truth, the countries that claim to be friends of the Syrian people refuses to transfer the voices of truth for medical treatment, all because of a visa.

Background: Syrian journalists in critical condition after bombing, The New Arab, 17 June 2016.

Update: Khaled al-Essa has died. Author Robin Yassin-Kassab writes:

The wonderful young revolutionary journalist Khaled al-Eissa is dead of his wounds. The very best are being murdered. The very worst grow in power.

Report: Syrian journalist Khaled al-Essa dies after bomb attack



Photo by the journalist Khaled al-Essa: Emergency workers after an airstrike hit a civilian neighbourhood in eastern Aleppo, wounding three, from the Observer, 31 April 2016.

Defiling the Graves of Lesvos

By Brian Slocock




Graves of unidentified refugees on the Greek island of Lesvos. Photo by Giorgos Moutafis.


The fund established to continue the work of slain MP Jo Cox has come under attack from assorted far right forces (and unfortunately someone once associated with the British left) for including in its list of beneficiaries the White Helmets—the volunteer civil defence service that act as first responders to bombing attacks on Syrian opposition communities, digging dead and injured victims out of the rubble.

The White Helmets have been subjected to a vicious slander campaign by a network of Syrian regime supporters, centred around Australian university lecturer Tim Anderson.

These people have long supported Assad’s bloody campaign of repression against anyone who dares to challenge his power, but their attack on the White Helmets carries this to a new level: not only do they cheer on the mass slaughter in Syria, they also seek to deny Assad’s victims the elementary right to rescue their loved ones and to bury their dead. This is akin to the ‘double tap’ attack favoured by both Assad and the Israeli air force: first you bomb a community and then you drop a second bomb to hit those who come out in response to the attack. But in this case the first attack comes in the form of the rhetorical onslaught by Anderson and his supporters, who seek to prevent the very existence of any form of civil defence in Syrian opposition communities—and then the real bombs drop.

This is a regression to medieval standards of warfare—as far as I know not even Lord Haw Haw objected when the British authorities appointed air raid wardens in the Second World War.




Nick Griffin’s tweet smearing Syria Civil Defence and the Jo Cox Fund.

Most of those contributing to this campaign have come from various sections of the far right: Nick Griffin of the BNP, British and US groups associated with the ‘libertarian right,’ climate change deniers, and opponents of the great ‘globalist’ conspiracy to take over the world—which they describe as linked to Jews, to Freemasons, and of course to green lizards from outer space. One vociferous supporter of Anderson can be found on the internet engaged with white supremacists branding Nelson Mandela a ‘terrorist.’

An unexpected, recent denizen of this fetid milieu is erstwhile British leftist Tariq Ali, who has reposted one of the cruder attacks on the memory of Jo Cox and the White Helmets on his Facebook page.

However, while all this chatter is going on the White Helmets are going about their work across large parts of Syria, braving Assad’s bombs to save lives and recover bodies (some 50,000 lives saved in the course of their operations at the cost of over 100 of their own lives), with modest support from some western governments, from public fund raising, and from sympathetic bodies like the London Fire Brigades Union. This gives them an annual budget about one-third the size of the fire service for a small English city, which usually has nothing more serious to deal with than chip fat fires and motor accidents. Clearly the resources that Jo Cox’s fund will provide to them can make an important contribution to saving lives in Syria.

There is a bitter twist to this tale: Assad supporter Tim Anderson, who is intimately associated with this attack on the White Helmets, has been invited to speak at the Crossing Borders conference on the Greek island of Lesvos, where many Syrian refugees have landed after a perilous sea voyage, and where over 60 who died in the attempt are buried. These are some of the pearls of wisdom he wants to share with the Conference:

“Most civilians in the areas said to have been ‘barrel bombed’ left a very long time ago… Every attack on al Nusra is thus portrayed as an attack on ‘civilians’ and clinics, or on emergency health workers. Much the same applies to Medicin Sans Frontiers (MSF), which funds al Nusra clinics… in several terrorist held areas.”

“The photos of dead and injured women and children in the ghost towns inhabited by the armed groups are simply borrowed from other contexts…”

“The Syrian Army has been brutal with terrorists but, contrary to western propaganda, protective of civilians.”

The spectacle of a supporter of the Assad regime being feted at a conference ostensibly concerned with refugees, just metres from the graves of victims of that same regime, would seem to be something that could only take place in a particularly bad dream. Yet it is due to happen next month, with Tim Anderson speaking under the sponsorship of Stop the War and the People’s Assembly against Austerity, and with Tariq Ali also on the platform. Anderson’s supporters are already crowing at this recognition.

While two scheduled speakers have refused to take part in this absurd farce, repeated attempts by Syrian solidarity activists to persuade Stop the War to take a stand against it have met a stone wall.

The reputation of the British left, of peace activism and of refugee support movements, is being challenged here. Pause and reflect for a moment how Syrian refugees will feel on hearing of this event, of what it says about how much real understanding and concern there is in this country for their suffering and lived histories. Anyone with political understanding should appreciate how callous this act is; anyone with an ounce of moral conscience should feel compelled to speak out in protest to the conference organisers, sponsors, and speakers.

PRESS RELEASE: Who is attacking the Jo Cox Fund for supporting Syria’s rescue volunteers?




Tariq Ali repeats the smear against Syria Civil Defence and the Jo Cox Fund on Facebook.

Volunteering with SAMS in Greece: Last days

Mark Boothroyd recently spent time volunteering with the Syrian American Medical Society team in Greece. You can read the start of his diary entries here, and the second part here.

28 May: Day five with SAMS Global Response

We headed back to Hara today. There was a struggle setting up the clinic. The usual spot was ruled out because people cooked there with fires made using plastic and other rubbish and the smoke was a health hazard, as well as the risk of burning down tents. We tried to park on the edge of the gas station next to the hotel, but the owner came out and told us to get off his property.

We found a spot further up the road and managed to get our tarp up to provide some shade for the patients.

The first couple of hours were extremely busy, with a host of minor injuries. Many people have been trying to cross the border and have sustained cuts and sprains due to the terrain, or at the hands of the FYROM police.

There were a few sick kids with fevers, and adults with headaches and sore throats. Sprained ankles and sore knees from long treks, and a fair few blisters.

One young man had his wrist broken by the FYROM police when they beat him and his friends for crossing the border. Everyone had stories of police brutality as they were violently attacked for attempting to cross. I had to remove the stitches from the scalp of guy who had his head split open by the police the last time he tried to cross. The attacks were so vicious that some people were praising the Greek police for being nice in comparison.

We met some lovely people as usual; a young Iranian guy hung around all day translating for Farsi speakers, an Afghan who had spent time in Pakistan helped out Urdu speaking refugees, while an Arab Syrian from Northern Syria translated into Kurdish for Iraqi and Syrian Kurds.

The best bit of the day was when a young girl made a thank you card for our translator Leena, and gave her some flowers. That our work inspired this effort in the midst of the harsh reality of the camp showed why it was so important. Among the total lack of care and support shown for the refugees by the EU and the Greek government, we were a sign that someone out there still cared for them, and wanted to do something to help. Without that, their whole experience would be of antagonism and fear and opposition. If we can bring a little human care and kindness into that situation, and help challenge that reality, it makes it all worth it.



29 May: Day six with SAMS Global Response

Today I was made Team Leader of the Hara clinic, a somewhat rapid promotion which I wasn't expecting.

After reorganising the clinic van and a trip to pharmacy we drove out to Hara and set up where we had yesterday.

Before we had even set up a volunteer came to us saying a pregnant woman was dizzy and needed to be seen. MSF also passed on a message that there had been fighting the night before and several stabbing so we should be prepared to receive lots of wounds.

We were inundated when we set up and ended up seeing 60 patients in the first two hours. There was only one stab victim though, and his wound had been inflicted several days before. The pregnant women was just a little dehydrated and suffering from morning sickness, so was given rehydration salts and encouraged to drink.

A young guy from Damascus who had helped translate for his friend came and sat with us during a quiet period. He had been in Turkey for three years before deciding to come to Europe. He explained he had lost all his family early in the revolt, so he had absolutely no one left.

He kept asking why the EU didn't let in refugees. "Do they think we're terrorists?!" he said repeatedly in English and Arabic. His anger and frustration were palpable.

The guy had no sympathy for radical nihilistic groups, but how long would that last if he was kept in this situation for another two or three years? Another patient explained that Daesh had taken over his village in Syria, so if he went back he would either have to join them or be killed. If the EU wouldn't let him in, his only choice to have any sort of life would be to return to Syria and join Daesh in some way.

The situation of the refugees; oppressed, denied their rights and forced to live in inhumane conditions, is a fertile ground for alienation and radicalisation. A translator reported that a group of refugees were joking that they wished they were animals because maybe the Europeans would treat them better then.

Despite this depressing reality, there some who maintained their spirit. A woman who had damaged her feet walking for five days over the border, still laughed and joked at how fast her smuggler had run and the comical manner in which he was shouting at them to go faster.

A real issue for us was a lack of Farsi translators. The population of Hara is mixed with lots of Afghans, Iranians, Kurds and Arabs from Iraq and Syria, some Pakistanis and Congolese. SAMS has plenty of Arabic speakers, but few Farsi speakers. We were lucky enough to have two Urdu speakers on our team, but that was pure coincidence. We did our best with help from refugees who spoke a bit of English helping to translate, but it was a struggle in more complex cases.

If any Farsi or Urdu speakers want to come out to volunteer with SAMS, please get in touch via their website.



From SAMS Global Response in Greece to Idlib National Hospital in Syria.
#MedicsUnderFire #NotATarget