Tag: Turkey

Turkey: Syrian refugees wait in grand hotel for boats to take them to Europe as the invasion continues

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

50,000 Syrians wait in a Turkish hotels to be smuggled into Germany, Sweden, Finland and Belgium.

There is so much news today, I don’t know what to write about first!  But, be sure to see my previous post about the US Justice Department letting a Somali (refugee) terrorist leave the country with vital information about the DC area.

This is one more in our ‘Invasion of Europe’ series—this time the invasion is being aided and abetted by Turkey (no surprise!).

Syrians hanging around in the hotel in Mersin waiting for the call to board a ship! Photo: Fabio Bucciarelli for Al Jazeera America

From Al-Jazeera:

MERSIN, Turkey — During summer months, Turks and Arabs on holiday crowd the Turkish port of Mersin, a town of 1.5 million people on the Mediterranean Sea. Stores lining the seafront sell Armani handbags and Turkish women sit unveiled in coffee shops, texting on their smartphones.

But in the last few years, hotels on Mersin’s waterfront have become home to a different kind of traveler.

Upper-middle-class refugees fleeing the violence of Syria’s civil war have used Mersin as an early waypoint – a safe harbor of sorts – on their way to new lives in countries like Germany, Sweden, Finland and Belgium.

In fact, Mersin’s tourist hotels, built recently but already showing signs of aging, serve as home to at least 50,000 Syrian refugees.

In the race to house them all, Green Tower hotel is ground zero. Here, Turkish has been replaced with Arabic, and some 300 Syrians wander the property aimlessly, waiting in limbo between the hell of war and an uncertain emigration to Europe. Rarely do they leave the hotel complex, in fear of missing the call that could very well represent the beginning of their new lives.

The one-way trip to Western Europe is organized by the Syrian and Turkish mafias and managed in detail by smugglers. Charging about $6,000 per person, the journey is accessible only to those who have put money aside — Syrians who have sold their homes and shops and managed to scrape together just enough to move their families away from danger.

In the past, most migrants who’ve found their way to the shores of Mersin were from African countries, rescued from small, waterlogged crafts. But this migration is different.

Smugglers transport refugees from Mersin to points throughout Europe on large ships, capable of squeezing up to 800 people into their hold.

[….]

According to Abu Hasan, a Syrian smuggler from Aleppo, the refugees used to be sent to Italy and Greece, but now head to Germany, Sweden, Finland and Belgium.

There is a lot more, with many photos, here.  Learn why Italy and Greece are not desirable landing sites any longer.

Why doesn’t the government of Turkey clean up the smuggler business?   I would guess two reasons—money, and because the government of Turkey is likely very happy to see Europe increase its Muslim population and thus bring about an Islamic state in Europe sooner than later.

And, come to think of it, where is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees?

Turkish border is a two-way street: easy for French Islamic terror suspect to leave and others to come in

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There is a very informative article today about what is happening in Turkey where it is believed that the Paris ‘wife’ (Hayat Boumeddiene) of one of the recent Muslim killers easily slipped into Turkey and then equally easily crossed into the IS stronghold in Syria.

We previously heard that Obama’s only real pal in the world was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I wonder if they are still best buds? Here with their wives in 2009. Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recep_Tayyip_Erdogan_with_Obamas.jpg

Compounding the terrorist detection problem is the deteriorating relationship of other European countries with Turkey.

The story is from an Australian paper called the Bega District News and written by Middle East Correspondent Ruth Pollard.

Here are some snips relating to the very real problem that the refugee population there surely harbors Islamic State infiltrators.

Setting the stage:

It is a conduit for money, weapons, oil and fighters – and it rarely discriminates.

Whether you’re a moderate rebel or an Islamic State jihadist, Turkey’s 900-kilometre border with Syria has long been a vital supply route for those fighting on the front lines of Syria’s brutal civil war. More than 1.5 million refugees have also fled across this border.

But Turkey’s hope that any fighter – no matter how extreme – would help opposition rebels bring down the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proven unfounded.

Instead, Assad remains in power, while extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda backed Jabhat al-Nusra have gained significant ground at the expense of what’s left of the Free Syrian Army and the other groups fighting to overthrow the regime.

And all the while, the terror these extremist groups practise is creeping ever closer towards Turkey.

Then near the end:

It is naive to believe that all the refugees who cross from Syria into Turkey are genuinely fleeing the regime, Sadik (Assistant Professor Giray Sadik from the Yildirim Beyazit University) says.

“It is almost inevitable that there will be some fighters in the almost 2 million refugees we have hosted since the eruption of the Syrian crisis. There is a need for enhanced security cooperation and also emergency humanitarian cooperation with the EU – on both sides it is far from being satisfactory.”

One thing is certain, he says. Turkey, like Europe, is vulnerable to attack because of its borders and the presence of foreign fighters on its soil.

Read it all.

US taking refugees from Turkey

Back in September 2014 we reported that the US State Department sent Simon Henshaw to discuss taking Syrian refugees from Turkey, here.  We haven’t resettled too many Syrians yet, only a few hundred, but I see in State Department statistics that we have processed 1,340 refugees through Turkey in only the first three months of this fiscal year (Oct-Dec 2014).  I wonder who they are.

In those three months of FY2015 only three other processing countries supplied larger numbers of refugees to America than did Turkey:  Iraq (2,881), Malaysia (2,130) and Thailand (1,390).

Syrian Christian refugees headed to Turkey

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Rarely do we see news about the persecuted Christians of Syria.  What we have seen indicated many were still in Syria and protected by the Assad government.  For new readers, when you see news of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians flooding into UN camps in Lebanon and Jordan, those are mostly Sunni Muslims (thus if we take refugees coming from those UN camps, we will get mostly Muslims in our upcoming batch of 10,000 or so).

This article at National Geographic is pretty interesting.   The only problem with going to Turkey is that they are persecuted for their ethnicity and their religion as they return to their ancient (pre-Islam!) homeland.

The fifth-century Mor Barsaumo church in Midyat, Turkey, draws Syriac Christians in what was once the faith’s heartland, as well as refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq. Photograph by Monique Jaques, National Geographic

Many are waiting in Midyat for their applications for asylum in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to be approved.

National Geographic:

MIDYAT, Turkey—On most afternoons, Mor Barsaumo, a honey-colored, fifth-century stone church nestled in a warren of slanted streets, draws a crowd. In the narrow courtyard, old men smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, while children kick a soccer ball across the stone floor. In a darkened classroom, empty except for a few desks, a teacher gives private lessons in Syriac, derived from Aramaic, the language of Christ.

And now, the refugees also come.

Advised by relatives or other refugees, newcomers to Midyat often make the steps of the church their first stop. Midyat and its environs—known in Syriac as Tur Abdin, “mountain of the servants of God”—are the historical heartland of the Middle East’s widely dispersed Syriac Orthodox Christian community. Now the region has become a haven as the fighting in Syria and Iraq has forced Christians to flee their homes.

“All Syriac Christians come here. Most of the aid is delivered from here,” says Ayhan Gürkan, a deacon at Mor Barsaumo and a member of the Tur Abdin Syriac Christians Committee, set up to look after Midyat’s Christian refugees.

But, even their refuge in Turkey is temporary:

For the four monks at Mor Gabriel Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries in the world, the flight of so many refugees to Europe is a painful reminder of how little is left of their world. A few refugees stay intermittently at the monastery, where they receive free room and board as well as money for doing odd jobs, but many head to Europe.

Here, Isa Gulten, an archdeacon at the monastery, conducts sporadic lessons in Syriac. This time, it’s for an audience of one: a German of Syriac descent studying to become a priest when he returns to Berlin. “You are listening to the original language of Christ,” Gulten says, reading a passage from St. Paul’s epistles.

“As Christians, we suffer doubly in the Middle East,” he says, pointing to the difference with Turkey’s Kurds, most of whom are Sunni Muslims. “The Kurds here are persecuted just for their ethnicity. But we are persecuted for both our ethnicity and our faith.”

Read it all.

As far as we know, only Canada has said specifically it will take Syrian Christians as a first priority, and as you can imagine the ‘humanitarian industrial complex’ is not pleased!

Has anyone heard anything out of the contractors, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, specifically about these Syrian Christians?

Time opinion piece: Jihadi superhighway is busy; refugee groups could be Trojan Horse

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Rep. Michael McCaul: Cruise ships may even be bringing terrorists into Turkey.

Time magazine published an informative article by Rep. Michael McCaul chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security yesterday.

Turkish border with Syria a huge problem (emphasis is mine):

Extremists are exploiting EU security gaps to exit Syria and Iraq and return to the West undetected, leading to a “terrorist diaspora”

Foreign fighters headed to the Middle East are not deterred by U.S. bombing in Syria and Iraq. According to recent reports, 1,000 fighters from countries across the globe are pouring into the conflict zone each month to fight with ISIS and other fanatics, adding to the 16,000 already estimated to have gone there.

The bad news is that Westerners are among their ranks, including Americans and Europeans, who are only a plane flight away from our shores. More troubling is that security gaps in Europe—and Turkey in particular—make it easier for them to return to the West undetected once they decide to leave.

The threat from “returnees” is real and growing. These battle-hardened, violent Islamists have the training and extremist networks to plot deadly terrorist attacks against our homeland.

http://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/trojanhorse.html

Refugee groups as a Trojan Horse:

Equally worrisome is that terrorists might use refugee groups as a Trojan Horse to get into the West. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have poured into Turkey this year, and many of them have left for other European countries by boat. It is unclear whether extremists are hiding in these groups, as few are comprehensively screened on the way out.

Unfortunately, the Mediterranean countries where these refugees are headed, like Italy and Greece, also have a disincentive to screen them. Overwhelmed by large migrant populations drawing on social services, these governments have a reason to “look the other way” and let unregistered migrants make their way into the rest of Europe to become another country’s problem. These transit routes are disturbingly susceptible to terrorist exploitation.

Wider European Union security gaps are also a problem. EU law forbids member states from automatically running EU citizens against terror watch lists when they return to the continent’s 26-country Schengen Area, a large swath of Europe in which its citizens can travel freely without border checks. As a result, only a fraction of EU citizens are screened against terror databases when they re-enter Europe. This vulnerability may allow European foreign fighters—many of whom can travel visa-free to the United States—to make it back to the West without drawing attention.

There is more, read it all.

See our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ series where we almost daily report on the mostly Muslim migrant flow from the Middle East and Africa into Europe.

What is trending in Syrian refugee news today?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Our Syrian refugee alerts are overflowing as usual, so I thought perhaps I should occasionally report the hottest issues. Here are a few stories today:

President Jose Mujica greeted the refugees in person after their two-day journey. The Uruguayan resettlement plan is unprecedented in Latin America. http://omnifeed.com/article/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-29561681

First, the possible fall of Kobani to ISIS is sending the biggest tidal wave of refugees toward Turkey (which will surely further destabilize that country).

From Syria Deeply entitled:  ‘180,000 Refugees from Kobani Mark the Biggest Displacement in the Biggest Refugee Crisis, Ever’

Since the ISIS advance on Kobani, the Turkish government and aid agencies have been struggling to respond to the influx of more than 180,000 Syrian refugees into southern Turkey

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani was “about to fall to ISIS.” Since the advance on Kobani, the Turkish government and aid agencies have been struggling to respond to the influx of more than 180,000 Syrian refugees into southern Turkey. The sudden, massive flow of refugees fleeing ISIS is the largest displacement in the Syrian conflict.

Humanitarian groups project that there will be 3.59 million Syrian refugees by December 2014, with annual budget requirements of US$3.74 billion (56% of which remains unfunded). For UNHCR, the Syria operation is now the largest in its 64-year history.

 Just a reminder for new readers, the US State Department says we are going to take thousands of refugees from Turkey, here.

The UNHCR wants foreign aid for Greece so it can cope with Syrian and Somali migrants arriving by the thousands

From All Africa:

UNHCR officials in Greece called for the European Union countries to support Greece as many refugees are in that country.

Joorjoos Tasabobulos is UNHCR official in Greece. He said the number of fleeing refugees coming to the Greek islands of Agenee K/bari, Agen and Dodeshense is on the increase. He said in the first eight months of this year, 22,089 refugees of which 65% are Syrians have arrived there whereas other refugees included Somalis, Eritreans and Afghans.

Elsewhere refugees numbering 140,000 from Somalia, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan arrived in Italy but Italy lacks resources to manage them.

See our series on the ‘invasion of Europe’ by clicking here.

Uruguay takes Syrian refugees.

You would think this was the most important item in the Syrian refugee news today based on the number of stories the news has generated.

From the BBC:

A small number of Syrian refugees have arrived in Uruguay from Lebanon.

Forty-two refugees, belonging to five families, were greeted on arrival by the Uruguayan President, Jose Mujica.

They will spend two months in accommodation near the capital Montevideo where they will learn Spanish and attend classes on local customs.***

Other Latin American countries have taken Syrians in but Uruguay is the first to assume all resettlement costs.

Officials say the two-year resettlement programme will cost Uruguay around $3m (£1.9m).

They say the adults have already been guaranteed jobs and the children have places in local school. A second group is due to arrive next year.

*** Note this huge difference in how these refugees will be assimilated—in a center for a few months to learn the language and customs!  In the US they are just deposited in cities and urged to be on their own, to be “self-sufficient” in three months.

Click here for all Syrian refugee posts archived at RRW.