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Kurds claim Turkish airstrike targeted refugee camp in Iraq

December 8, 2017 By administrator

Amberin Zaman

A mysterious explosion near a refugee camp harboring thousands of displaced Turkish Kurds has killed five members of a Kurdish militia and injured three others amid claims that Turkey was responsible for the alleged attack.

The administrative council for the Makhmour camp, southwest of Erbil, claimed late Wednesday’s blast was caused by an airstrike carried out by Turkey. The council, which is believed to have close ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said, “It is significant that a camp under the protection of the United Nations, located in the middle of Iraqi territory was attacked. The Federal Iraqi State, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the UN will be clearly implicated until they issue convincing explanations on the matter.” But the statement failed to specify by what means Turkey had conducted the alleged aerial attack.

Kurdistan 24, an Iraqi Kurdish media outlet, claimed the camp had been struck by a rocket but also did not explain how it may have been launched. Earlier reports suggested the explosion was caused by a car bomb.

Turkey and Iraq have not responded to any of the accusations so far. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which provides assistance to the camp, has not commented either.

Leyla Arzu Ilhan, a former co-chair of the Makhmour Council, backed the claims of an airstrike. She told Al-Monitor, “Residents saw a flash in the sky then heard a loud explosion, so this points to an aerially launched device.” Ilhan said a structure housing local self-defense forces that were established after Islamic State militants attacked Makhmour as they swept across Iraq in the summer of 2014 had been targeted.

“Much of the building collapsed and we have been clearing debris to rescue two of our friends who were stuck under the rubble,” Ilhan said. “Now that we have buried our dead we will undertake a further exhaustive search of the debris for evidence.”

Ilhan acknowledged that an initial search around the site of the blast had yielded no material evidence that could help determine its source. She agreed that IS may have been responsible.

IS militants have used armed drones to attack Iraqi forces and the Kurds, be they in Iraq, Syria or Turkey, are among their archfoes. But Ilhan insisted that Turkey was the more likely culprit. She speculated that the alleged Turkish attack was meant to pressure the PKK into freeing two Turkish intelligence operatives who were netted in a sensational sting operation in September as they met with their moles near the town of Dukhan in Iraqi Kurdistan. “We can’t be sure but it’s a distinct possibility,” she told Al-Monitor. The men remain in PKK captivity despite protracted efforts on the part of MIT chief Hakan Fidan to secure their release.

A Kurdish-Turkish politician living in self-imposed exile in Europe took a different view. He argued that the attack was part of a broader pattern of emerging cooperation between Turkey, Iraq and Iran against the Kurds. The politician, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity, told Al-Monitor, “Ever since the referendum [on Kurdish independence] we have seen signs of these three countries reverting to their old ways of ganging up against the Kurds.” The politician predicted that “it is only a matter of time before Turkey and Syria reconcile and do the same,” pointing to last month’s wave of Turkish airstrikes against Asos Mountain on the Iraq-Iran border.

Turkey periodically rains bombs on PKK bases in the Qandil Mountains but the attack against Asos was a first. The pro-PKK Firat news agency claimed the strikes occurred after Iranian drones scouted the area and then passed on target coordinates to Turkey.

Makhmour has long been a Turkish bugbear because of PKK entrenchment there and every so often rumors surface of an imminent Turkish attack against the camp.

Many of Makhmour’s residents began fleeing military brutality in Turkey in the early 1990s, when the blood-soaked PKK-led Kurdish insurgency was at its peak. The militants have a firm grip over the camp, where giant images of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan are commonplace.

Some Western aid workers caustically refer to the place as a rest and recreation center for PKK fighters pausing from their ongoing battle against Turkish forces for self-rule inside Turkey. With its sand-colored cinderblock dwellings, multiple schools and convenience stores, the dusty settlement looks more like a small town than a camp.

Repatriating an estimated 14,000 Turkish Kurds who live in the desolate desert outpost was envisaged under now stalled peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK. With few prospects of them resuming, it seems they will be stuck there for the foreseeable future.

Found in:

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: airstrike, Kurd, refugees, Turkish

While Turkey Received Billions $ aid from EU and UN yet Syrian children forced to work rather than study

December 5, 2017 By administrator

They work up to 12 hours a day to help their families. Labor is part of daily life for many displaced Syrian children in Turkey. Studying is a luxury, and so is play. Julia Hahn reports from Istanbul.

It’s 8 a.m. The muffled clattering of sewing machines can be heard outside on the street. Aras Ali hurries down the stairs into the neon-lit glare to make sure she’s on time for the start of her shift. Aras is 11-years old, and the tailor’s shop in Istanbul’s Bagcilar quarter is her workplace.

The girl works with several other children to make sure the seamstresses are constantly supplied with material. She cuts the colorful fabric with a pair of scissors and sorts it so that individual sections of cloth lie ready for the clattering machines. The women are sewing them into ladies’ underwear.

Cut, pile up, cut, pile up. Twelve hours a day, Monday to Friday, for the equivalent of about 150 euros ($180) a month. Four years ago Aras fled the northern Syrian town of Afrin with her family and came to Turkey, first to Gaziantep, then Istanbul.

“Rent, food, the water bill: It’s all so expensive here,” the girl said. “My mother isn’t too well, and one of my sisters is sick, so I have to work to help them.” This is the kind of thing you hear from almost every child in this workshop. It’s apparent that these are children who have had to grow up much too fast.

‘Very widespread problem’

The issue is not new. “Child labor has been a structural and very widespread problem in Turkey for a very long time,” said Sezen Yalcin, who works for the rights organization Support to Life. “It’s even reflected in people’s mindsets: Many people think it’s not a problem in most of the cases.”

Precise figures aren’t available, but the number of children conscripted into the workforce in Turkey has risen sharply alongside the number of displaced people admitted to the country since 2011. So far, Turkey has taken in more than 3 million Syrians — more than any other country in the world. No other country has provided a home to so many displaced children: UNICEF estimates that there are 1.2 million living there. But only a few live in the official camps in the southeast of the country near the Syrian border. Most families try their luck in the big cities. As many as 1 million displaced people are estimated to be living in Istanbul alone.

“Most of the children working in Turkey used to attend school back home in Syria, so it’s a drastic rupture in their lives and childhoods,” Yalcin said. “When they start to work, their childhood ends — forever, or for a while at least.”

The law is unambiguous: Child labor is forbidden in Turkey. Anyone employing girls and boys younger than 15 is liable to be prosecuted. Nonetheless, the children work in the textile or agricultural industries, as cutters, or as harvest workers in the fields. Anywhere where the state doesn’t look too closely and where social security contributions and occupational safety are ignored.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: children, refugees, Syrian, Turkey, work

Turkish Soldiers Terrorizing Syrian Refugees, Video Shows

July 30, 2017 By administrator

A video released on social media shows Turkish soldiers beating a group of young Syrian refugees who were caught trying to enter Turkey.

The Turkish soldiers are seen beating the refugees and asking them: “Why do you come to Turkey?” “What is in Turkey for you?” “Where are you going to go in Turkey? Are you going to go to İstanbul?” “Are you going to come Turkey again?” and “Why did you help refugees cross the border? Are you refugee smugglers?”

The undated video taken by a Turkish soldier who also beat young Syrians ends with a soldier saying: “We will indeed see you at the outpost,” a clear threat that they will treat them worse at a military outpost.

Young Syrians are seen collecting cigarette butts on the ground, a punishment usually reserved for Turkish soldiers, while being beaten by the soldiers.

@MuratzenciTR, who shared the video on Twitter, said: “When you watch this without sound, you would think that [Bashar Al] Assad’s soldiers are torturing the Syrians. It is a shock when you watch it with sound…”

The soldiers have been detained and an investigation launched into them due to “unacceptable behavior,” said the Turkish military in a written statement on Sunday afternoon, confirming the video.

According to the statement the young Syrians were detained as they were trying to enter Turkey illegally at 11:00 on July 28, and were afterwards deported. (turkishminute.com)

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: refugees, Syrian, Terrorizing, Turkish soldiers

Syrian Artist paints Donald Trump and other world leaders as refugees

June 24, 2017 By administrator

Trump as refugeesThe Vulnerability Series is an exhibition by Syrian artist Abdulla Al-Omari in the
United Arab Emirates. He gives world leaders a makeover with a difference. He takes them out of their fine suits and paints them as refugees, euronews reports.

Al-Omari says his exhibition is a reaction to his plight as a refugee: “I wanted to imagine how all these powerful leaders in the world would look if they were in our shoes.

The painter says he wanted to “disarm” the leaders by picturing them outside their positions of power.

The media, he says, focuses on the numbers of refugees but neglects the personal stories behind these figures.

“When you know the personal story of someone, you connect with them,” says Al-Omari.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: artis, refugees, Syrian, Trump

EU approves €3 million program to support Syrian refugees in Armenia

June 21, 2017 By administrator

The European Union has decided to allocate €3 million to support Syrian refugees in Armenia, the European Commission revealed on Tuesday, June 20.

The funds will be used to enhance access to health and psychosocial services, improve housing conditions, increase access to economic opportunities, and facilitate the integration of schoolchildren and students in Armenia.

The EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis adopted new projects totaling €275 million. These projects will support refugees and their overstretched host communities not only in Armenia, but also in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and the Western Balkans.

According to the Commission, €126.5 million from the assistance package will go to Turkey; €90 million program envisages better education in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan; €25 million will be alloted to support vulnerable women and girls in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Furthermore, a €21 million program will help Serbia manage the migration/refugee crisis along the Balkan route, while Jordan will receive €10 million for its public health system to ensure increased access to and quality of secondary and tertiary healthcare for Jordanian and Syrian refugees.

The newly adopted assistance package brings the current overall volume of the EU Trust Fund up to over €1 billion which was the goal set by President Jean-Claude Juncker on September 23, 2015.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, EU, refugees, Syrian

Armenia to provide $90,000 assistance to refugees from Syria

May 4, 2017 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Armenia will allocate AMD 43 million (about $ 90,000) in order to assist refugees from Syria. The decision was made at a government session on Thursday.

The amount will be allocated to Hayastan All-Armenian Fund that will buy everything necessary for humanitarian assistance to refugees.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, refugees, Syrian

Izmir: Watch true Turkish Terrorism on Syrian refugees with knives, burn tents VIDEO

April 9, 2017 By administrator

This photo shows angry Turkish citizens going to attack Syrian refugees in Torbali district of Turkey’s Izmir province on April 8, 2017.IDEO

Some 500 Syrian refugees have been forced to flee a makeshift housing in Turkey’s western Izmir province after being violently attacked by locals who burnt their tents.

The attack took place in Izmir’s Torbali district on Saturday after reports claiming that a local child had been beaten by the Syrians.

A mob of around 300 Turkish people, armed with knives and clubs, stormed into the makeshift housing and set fire to refugees’ tents.

Local media reports said 40 tents were destroyed in the fighting and about 30 people were injured, one of them identified as 22-year-old Mustafa critically. The wounded were all taken to hospital.

“It was impossible to stop the neighborhood. They are full of rage. We don’t want Syrians in our area. Problems have increased since they arrived,” Ali Curukcu, the local headman, was quoted as saying by the Turkish Dogan news agency.

https://youtu.be/FGZ2UfbVKjY

Images showed there were no police officers at the site.

The Syrian refugees were seen walking on the highway towards Izmir’s Tire neighborhood as no driver took them to their destination. Angry Turkish citizens also closed the highway for some time.

During the early years of the war in neighboring Syria, Turkey had an open-door policy and allowed Syrian refugees into the country as it also let extremists from around the world travel to the Arab country to topple the government.

Although Turkey says it still maintains its open-door policy, the number of Syrian refugees allowed in during the past two years has dwindled considerably, with many saying the borders are essentially closed to refugees.

The high number of Syrian refugees in Turkish towns and cities has led to multiple instances of a serious nature, including clashes in the past.

Many locals also revile them and the Turkish government only provides assistance to those staying in officially sanctioned camps.

Ankara does not even grant Syrians refugee status and they only have temporary protection status as guests. Turkey does not accept refugees from non-European countries.

Turkey has been a staunch supporter of a campaign pushed by Western countries and their regional allies to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011. Ankara has allowed militants from around the world to freely enter Syria and wreak havoc in the Arab country.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: attack, refugees, Syria, Turks

Iran’s MFA reacts to another anti-Iranian statement by Turkish authorities

March 27, 2017 By administrator

The Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of Iran has reacted to another anti-Iranian statement made by the Turkish authorities, Panorama.am reports citing Tasnim Iranian news agency.

As the Iranian source reports, the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey has announced that a new flow of over three million refugees of other countries in Iran is moving from Iran to Turkey and from there to Europe.

Responding to the above-mentioned statement of the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, as well as to the Turkish President Erdoğan’s speech in Istanbul, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi in particular noted: “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues making baseless statements against Iran. As for the refugees, Iran has been hosting millions of refugees from its neighboring countries for more than 30 years. Turkey should learn how Iran has treated refugees having never misused this humanitarian issue for special pre-planned political purposes against any country.”

To note, turning to the regular anti-Iranian statements made by Turkey’s President and Foreign Minister, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that “Turkey is an ungrateful neighbour.”

Earlier, during the visit paid to Bahrain, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan touched upon the regional developments noting that religious and national differences are observed in Iraq. Iranian nationalism, as well as separatist movements have also been formed there which must be stopped.

In that regard, Turkey’s Ambassador to Iran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Iran, refugees, Turkey

Most asylum seekers slip into Canada-U.S. border, in Surrey B.C through Peace Arch Park

March 2, 2017 By administrator

In 10 month period since last April, 912 refugee claimants have walked across the border

By Belle Puri, CBC News

The surge of asylum seekers walking across the Canada-U.S. border, in Surrey B.C., accounts for 80 per cent of the people who have made refugee claims in Vancouver, B.C., since April 2016.

Of the 1,140 refugee claimants who have reached the Lower Mainland, 912 simply walked through Peace Arch Park at the B.C.-Washington border.

The majority of them are Kurdish-speaking Iraqis and young families from Afghanistan, according to the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. (ISSofBC)

Iraqis account for the largest number of new asylum seekers with 65 in the past three months.

“For the Iraqis, there is a little bit of an underground railroad,” said Chris Friesen, the Immigrant Services Society of B.C.’s (ISSofBC) director of settlement services.

“There is a network that is supporting them to reach the Canada-U.S. border and cross it to find their way into Vancouver to make their refugee claim.”

The majority of the asylum seekers, according to Friesen, have legal permits to be in the United States as tourists or students but some are undocumented immigrants.

Friesen says in recent months, they’ve increasingly made decisions to seek refuge in Canada and avoid the possibility of being sent back to their home countries because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tough talk on refugees and illegal immigrants.

More Mexicans too

Mexicans are also making up a growing segment of new arrivals at ISSofBC’s welcome centre in Vancouver.

“Since December, we’ve seen 29 individuals and that is the same number that we saw for all of the preceding year,” said Friesen.

On December 1, 2016, the federal government removed its requirement for Mexicans to have a visa to come here.

Friesen says that makes it easy to arrive as a tourist and not go home.

“We have a lot more inquiries from Mexicans, in Mexico, trying to better understand how Canada’s asylum process works and what they would experience if they did show up in Canada and declare a wish for asylum,” he said.

Organizations like ISSofBC that assist new refugees in B.C. are watching closely as the Trump administration develops additional executive orders and policy directions.

If there is a real movement to accelerate the number of removals of undocumented immigrants from the United States, Friesen expects there will be an impact on the number of people fleeing to B.C.

“To what degree, we don’t know. But it will have an impact on those who are continuing to cross the land border.”

‘How to’ guide

The immigrant and refugee advocacy group No One Is Illegal reports a constant stream of inquiries in recent weeks from new arrivals and those who hope to make a run across the border.

“We’ve seen an overall increase in people who have been calling particularly since the election in the United States,” said organization spokesperson Harsha Walia.

“I did meet with two Mexican families yesterday who are trying to bring their families as refugees into Canada in the near future.”

The group is developing a multi-lingual resource guide for potential refugees, so they understand Canada’s asylum policies before they attempt to cross the border.

“Mexican refugees are routinely denied. It’s one of the highest refusal rates in Canada,” said Walia.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: refugees, US. canada

Turkey Threatens Annulling EU Migrant Deal if Greece Doesn’t Extradite Soldiers

January 27, 2017 By administrator

By Kerry Kolasa-Sikiaridi,

On Friday Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a statement of veiled threats to annul the EU-Turkey migration deal if Greece does not allow the extradition of the eight Turkish officers who fled Turkey for Greece following July’s failed military coup attempt.

According to the hurriyetdailynews.com, Minister Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara would take the “necessary steps, including possible annulment of the bilateral readmission agreement,” following Thursday’s decision by the Greek Supreme Court to deny extradition of the eight Turkish officers.

The officers, who were soldiers in the Turkish military, flew their helicopters to Alexandroupolis on July 16, 2016 as the military coup attempt in Turkey failed. The soldiers have since claimed that if they return to Turkey their lives will be endangered, leading them to apply for asylum in Greece.



Greece, as well as all of Europe relies heavily on the EU-Turkey migration deal as it details that asylum seeking migrants who come to Greece from Turkey will have their asylum requests denied and be sent back to Turkey.

Erdogan implies Tsipras promised to return Turkish officers, expresses anger
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras making it clear that failure to return the officers would harm bilateral ties.

Erdogan made comments suggesting that Tsipras had promised him that the eight officers would be returned. “The first night [after the attempted coup] I called him. He said the matter would be settled in 15 to 20 days,” Erdogan said, referring to Tsipras.

The Turkish leader spoke of “terrorists” who must be tried in their country. “The delay in their return obviously undermines trust,” he said, in reference to bilateral ties.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: EU, Greece, refugees, Turkey

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