Refugees

Empty containers are ready

The Turkish city of Kilis is preparing to take in refugees who are sent back from Greece. Now more Syrians to live here as a Turkish inhabitants. From Kilis Verica Spasovska reported.

In the streets of Kilis, a hive of activity. Small stores in the old town colorful: Coppersmiths, tailors, hairdressers. The 19-year-old Zeinep from Aleppo, which sells women’s underwear and seems to have the Situation arranged. Three years ago, the Kurd is fled before the bombs in the Turkish border town.

The number of inhabitants more than doubled

“Life here is actually fine,” she says, “but if I could go back home, I would kiss the floor. Because, if here in Kilis bombs from Syria take, and then the Locals make us refugees for the terrorist responsible. And such hostility and hurt.” Only last week, three rockets in Kilis were taken. A child and a woman were killed. Kilis is located just twenty kilometers from the Syrian border. Behind-the-border of the Islamic state (IS).

Zeinep: “If I could go back home, I would kiss the floor.”

Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria has doubled the number of inhabitants of Kilis. In addition to the original 100,000 Turkish inhabitants of the city is now home to around 130,000 refugees. Many of them are already here for several years, some for only a few months. Some 45,000 of them live in a refugee camp, the others have found private accommodations.

Mayor: refugees are our guests

The mayor of Kilis, Hasan Kara, said about the refugees, that they are “guests” with which the inhabitants share everything you have. The man believes his word. But he also admits that it is not easy, so many people from Syria in the town. While it is important not only to the infrastructure and the water supply, which was originally designed for half the current population. The Syrian refugees differed in many respects from the Turks, told Kara.

The mayor of Kilis, Hasan Kara

The Syrian women, even small girls wear, consistently head-cloth, and there are plenty of burqa wearers. The Syrians don’t speak Turkish, and in Kilis, we do not speak Arabic. Affordable housing is scarce, jobs even and the Turkish citizens of Kilis resent the fact that their mostly unemployed Syrian neighbors are up late into the night awake, while they themselves have to be up early to work in the morning.

Back home – if it were

What weighs heavier: With the Syrian refugees but also archaic life ways. That girls and boys are taught separately, the Syrian parents have passed in the warehouse. In the enlightened Turkey that is unfamiliar. But the administration of Kilis has joined.

Care for the Not: a Kindergarten in the refugee camp

What is the effort of the city of Kilis and its inhabitants assist in the absorption of the refugees in the camp, significantly, that the city has erected in front of their gates. Just behind the mosque in neat bright living container is lined with fine, marked with street names and house numbers. Laundry fluttering on the lines. An old woman tried, in rusty tin herb pots. An Old man enjoys the spring sun. The Smallest sit in the nursery and paint, more than two thousand children’s press, the school, Bank, medical centre, medical care is guaranteed, of course, free of charge, and in the supermarket, the shelves are filled to the brim. “Yes,” says a grey-haired teacher from Aleppo. “It is good here, but also a bit expensive.” If it were, he would return home.

A Container for 10,000 more refugees

But back to Syria, which is currently impossible. If refugees in Kilis leave, told the mayor of Kara, then you want to be, almost without exception, to Germany. Of the agreement between the European Union (EU) and Turkey, many have heard nothing. If it is, then those who still want to continue, that somehow still find some way to come to Germany or elsewhere to Western Europe hope.

Separate classes for girls and boys: a school in the refugee camp in Kilis

While Kilis already prepared, up to 10,000 more refugees. On the outskirts of the small refugee city, a newly built and still uninhabited Container-colony. For those who are soon to be from Greece sent back. Back in Turkey, all refugees, since the 20. March in Greece to arrive, and it is not credible to be able to demonstrate that they are being persecuted in Turkey. “The agreement with the EU is in principle good,” says Kara diplomatically, “but if the war is not stopped in Syria, it brings you nothing”.

The Turkish citizenship as an Option

If it were up to him, should remain with the refugees in Kilis. Because you could return from here to rapidly return to their homeland, when the war is eventually over. But the longer this takes, the more likely it is that many of the 2.7 million Syrian refugees, which has included the Turkey, stay for always. After five years, they can accept the Turkish citizenship. For this, you should be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan grateful. And he will win new voters, it is said behind his Hand.

Maybe the Turkish citizenship is sometime also for Zeinep an Option. Now, you would fall in love, in fact, happy at last, she says. And perhaps that would then remain for you a reason to. To Germany she wanted to anyway. Because that’s where the Syrian refugees are not so welcome. You’ve heard on Turkish television.