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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2018)
February 7, 2018 The Skanner Portland Page 13 News Still a Trickle, But Refugees Sick of Exile Return to Syria By Bassem Mroue Associated Press ALEPPO, Syria — Des- perate to escape Syria’s terrors, Ammar Maara- wi bolted. In early 2016, he paid smugglers and endured a dangerous sea crossing to Greece and an exhausting journey by train, bus and foot through Europe. Two years later, the 36-year-old is back home in Aleppo. He returned last summer — de- pressed, homesick and dreading another winter, he couldn’t bear life in the German city of Suhl. Germany, he said, “was boring, boring, boring.” Maarawi is among a small number of refu- gees who have come back to Syria from among the more than 5.4 million who fled their homeland since the civil war erupt- ed in 2011. So far, they are just a trickle, numbering in the tens of thousands. The United Nations and host governments in Eu- rope are not encouraging returns, saying the coun- try is not safe. But the stream of re- turnees may grow over the coming year as sta- bility returns to Syria and as hostility grows to refugees in host nations. The Russia- and Iran- backed military of Pres- ident Bashar Assad has retaken almost all major cities, and the Islamic State group has been driven out of almost all the territory it once held. Motivations for going back are many. Simple homesickness is one. Many refugees have burned through what- ever savings they have and either can’t find or aren’t allowed to work. Hundreds of thousands languish in camps in the neighbor countries. Those who make it to Eu- rope often get assistance, but some find the West doesn’t hold the oppor- tunities they hoped — or they face discrimination or they feel alienated in a different culture with language barriers and harsh weather. Still, the reasons to remain in exile also weigh heavily. The calm in some parts of Syria relies on tenuous local truces. Fighting still rag- es in some areas, includ- ing between Assad and rebels in the northwest and other pockets. Many young men won’t come back fearing they’ll have to do their compulsory military service. Even in parts where fighting has stopped and seems un- likely to return for the moment, cities have suf- fered massive destruc- “ the most recent figures available, according to spokesman Andrej Mah- ecic. He said the number of returnees is dwarfed by those remaining in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe, and those still leaving Syria. Turkey, home to 3.5 million Syrian refugees, seized a pocket of terri- tory in northwest Syr- ia along the countries’ shared border last year. Since then, some 130,000 Syrians from that area have returned. From Jordan, home to 650,000 refugees, only around 8,000 Syrians returned home in all of 2017, according to UNHCR figures. Most went soon after a local truce was reached in part of south- ern Syria in July, then the numbers tapered off later in the year. In Leba- non, the UNHCR said last month that the number of regis- tered refugees dropped to below one million for the first time since 2014. Some had resettled in third countries or had died, but a few thousand returned home. Not all are going back because they are ready. One woman, Umm Wis- sam, told The Associat- ed Press she returned to Syria in August after six years in Jordan. Her husband was deported several months earlier — one of around 2,300 deported by Jordan in 2017. He had been work- ing in construction in Jordan and without his income, Umm Wissam and the couple’s five chil- dren couldn’t continue to live there. The family is from Aleppo, but the The situation here, unfortunately, is no water, no electricity, no work. Our situa- tion is very tiring, I swear to God tion. An estimate 6.1 mil- lion Syrians still in the country are displaced from their homes — so refugees are not the only ones waiting to go back. Figures on returnees are difficult to pin down. Syrian officials say they do not have exact num- bers, adding that many come back through Leb- anon and are not ques- tioned if they were refu- gees or simply travelling Syrians. European coun- tries and Turkey do not track whether Syrians leaving are returning home. The UNHCR has ob- served some 68,000 ref- ugees who returned on their own from neigh- boring countries from January to October 2017, cost of living there has forced them to settle in the southern Syrian city of Daraa. “The situation here, un- fortunately, is no water, no electricity, no work. Our situation is very tir- ing, I swear to God,” she wrote on WhatsApp. Maarawi, meanwhile, is happy to be home. He sat behind a desk in his tire repair shop near Aleppo’s main Saadallah al-Jabiri Square. The city is largely at peace now after government forces defeated rebels there in December 2016. Like many others, Maarawi embarked on an epic journey to reach safety in Europe. He left Syria in January 2016. From Turkey, he took one of the crowded, in- flatable smugglers’ boats to the Greek island of Lesbos — an especially hazardous trip, because he doesn’t know how to swim. He made his way across Macedonia, Ser- bia, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria, enduring long train rides and walks through forests. In Germany, he began AP PHOTO/HASSAN AMMAR Stream of returnees may grow as stability returns to the country In this Jan. 19, 2018 photo, Adeeb Ayoub, 13, who had left Syriai with his uncle in 2015 to Germany, runs next to homemade cannon, in Aleppo, Syria. A small but growing number of refugees are returning to Syria, including some who made a dangerous sea journey to Europe to flee the war. Unable to stand the cold weather, language barrier, unemployment and depression, they have chosen to return to their war-torn country rather than stay in Europe. learning the language and training for work. The Germans provided food, clothes and a sti- pend, but, “in the town where I was staying there was no life, there were few people, you suf- fer psychological pres- sure, depression, and it is cold,” he said. He lasted just a few months, returning in July. Adeeb Ayoub, a 13-year- old, took the sea trip to Greece with his uncle in 2015. “I felt that the pos- sibility of surviving the sea is bigger than surviv- ing in Aleppo,” said his father, Firas Ayoub. “Before, if you had giv- en me Europe, America and all the continents of the world, I would not leave my country,” said Firas, who owns a choco- late shop in central Alep- po. “The idea of leav- ing came when the war crushed everything. Can someone stay and live in a ball of fire? Wherever you go, it’s fire, shells and rockets.”