Overcrowding at passport office in Syria’s Aleppo as population rushes to emigrate
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Abdulbasit al-Shahrour didn’t manage to finish renewing his passport at the Immigration and Passport Branch in the city of Aleppo, northern Syria, despite his arrival since the early morning hours, due to the crowding in the department.
Although visitors to the department agree that routine complications and obstruction of transactions for bribes play a role in the congestion, most of them note that the number of passport seekers has increased recently.
According to an immigration and passport officer in Aleppo, about 5,000 people visit the branch daily to obtain passports.
Al-Shahrour, a resident of the Akramiya neighborhood in the city of Aleppo, says that he arrived at the building at half past seven in the morning, and that he, along with other auditors, arrived even before officers and police officers of the Passport Branch, “but to no avail.”
He added that the large number of customers comes amid many illogical complications, “so you are forced to stand at any window that needs the signature of its employees for a period that may exceed an hour.”
In 2010, al-Shahrour returned to Syria after working in the UAE for years. “During the years of war and despite the great security risks, I preferred to stay and work in my country.”
Another customer says that the sight of people crowding in front of rooms and windows to conduct passport transactions makes you feel that everyone in the country is fleeing from it.
75-year-old Ayman Qabanji, a resident of the city, preferred to pay a sum of money to a fixer to ease the effort, and to obtain a passport quickly.
He said that he was forced to do so in the midst of this crowding and in his old age, in order to travel to his brothers in Saudi Arabia and join in their work there.
The fixer, who has good relations with the officers of the Immigration and Passports Branch, told Qabanji that he would complete his transaction within two days instead of the standard 40 days in return for $200.
50-year-old Abdulbasit al-Shahrour still had to wait for another policeman to call his name today to finish his transaction at another window.
He says that the worsening situation, the absence of any government solutions to crises, and the severe shortage of all necessities of life “made me make the decision to emigrate again, and perhaps I will not return to Syria except as a visitor.”