Syria displaced learn to live their fate
jarablus (syria) — When Hikmat’s mother managed to sneak back into their home city of Aleppo, now controlled by government forces, she found a single word spray-painted in red on their house: “Confiscated.” Same with the family store and another house. Their farm, south of the city, is probably lost to them as well, in territory recently recaptured by Syrian forces.
This is the new reality for displaced Syrians who supported the armed opposition challenging President Bashar Assad or who lived in areas once held by the opposition. Now driven elsewhere, they face the prospect that they may never be able to return.
Around half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million has been uprooted — the overwhelming majority of them Sunnis, who were among the first to rise against the government in 2011. Nearly 6 million fled abroad, while 6.6 million are displaced within Syria.
Roughly a third of the displaced are crammed into areas that remain outside government hands in northern Syria: rebel-held Idlib province and a neighbouring Turkish-controlled enclave. Thrown together from different parts of the country, they have to adjust to a strange new hybrid society where former city dweller and former village farmer, uneducated and educated, liberal and conservative now live side by side in tent camps or rented homes, with different accents, cuisines and customs.
They all share the realisation that this may be their future.
“I see this as a long-term thing. It is not a year or two and we will return. No!” Hikmat said, speaking recently in Jarablus, a Turkish-administered town in northern Syria. “All (our properties) are gone.”
Hikmat, who was once a radiologist, said he believed his house in Aleppo was seized by government supporters known as “shabiha” in revenge because, in 2012, when his part of the city broke away from the government, opposition fighters defeated the local shabiha militia and confiscated its commander’s property.
Since fleeing Aleppo in 2016 as government forces retook rebelheld sections of the city, Hikmat has had to move twice more before ending up in Jarablus. Some displaced have had to move as many as two dozen times, getting further from their homes.
Now Hikmat is dealing with life in the territory he and other displaced refer to as the “rural north,” almost as if it’s a new province.
He lamented the loss of cosmopolitan Aleppo. His clinic was in one of the city’s posh neighbourhoods, his boss was an Armenian, his colleagues Christians. In Jarablus, he runs an orphanage for children from
Coming here is easier than going to the regime. Demographic change ... is the worst thing that happened in Syria, much worse than the destruction Abdulkafi Alhamdo,
A displaced person
Aleppo, and he worries that here they are forgetting city life.
The kids are losing their distinct Aleppo accent, their last link to their home, he said. Aleppo is known as Syria’s food capital because of its elaborate dishes, and the food habits in their new home were a shock to some of the children. Some of them laughed at a teacher — himself displaced from eastern Syria — for eating a traditional plate of rice and meat with his fingers.
Omar Aroub, who was evacuated more than 14 months ago from his home in the city of Homs, still can’t find a job. Homs was once the heart of the uprising against Assad but is now almost empty of its Sunni population.
The 20-year-old Aroub lives in a tent camp in Jarablus with hundreds of others displaced from his Homs neighbourhood of Al Waer. Theirs was the last district of the city to fall after years of bombardment and siege that wreaked destruction and pushed residents to near starvation.
He said the only work in Jarablus was to join one of the Turkishbacked armed groups. A neighbour who joined makes $90 a month and has begun building a house.
“Everyone is now building houses because they realised they’re going to be here for a while,” Aroub said.
Newly displaced Umm Khaled can’t fathom what life has come to. She arrived in April in Al Bab, another Turkish-administered town, escaping the government capture of Ghouta, a once relatively prosperous agricultural region on Damascus’ outskirts.
She finds it unbearable being crammed into a tent camp with few services and hundreds of others.
This life is not for us. We Doumanis are difficult. Our men are difficult. ... There will be problems between the different people because of different mentalities Umm Khaled,
A displaced woman
People from her hometown of Douma, in Ghouta, are more conservative and the men keep heavy watch over the women, she said. She covers her face with a veil and wears gloves.
“This life is not for us,” she said. “We Doumanis are difficult. Our men are difficult. ... There will be problems between the different people because of different mentalities.”
Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a 33-yearold English teacher, has run into cultural differences after fleeing from Aleppo to Idlib, the last remaining opposition stronghold. People there regularly drop by each other’s homes, while Aleppans are more private, he said, so his new neighbours were flustered.
“They say why are they not visiting us? Are they upset?” he said. —