IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – After Turkish authorities deported him through Bab al-Hawa border crossing to Syria, hopes of the 35-year-old Ra’oof Zaidan, an IDP residing in Deir Hassan camps, north of Idlib, of improving his economic conditions have been aborted.
In early April, Zaidan, who hails from the city of Ma’arat al-Nu’man south of Idlib, resorted to Turkey after he paid $1.500 that he had borrowed for his trip that was full of danger.
The young man had not known that visiting the Directorate of Migration Management was too risky, but his friends’ assurances that it was a routine pushed him to visit it in order to obtain the Kimlik (a temporary identity card).
Official Turkish statistics indicate that Turkey houses about 4.5 million Syrian refugees, while unofficial ones indicate that the number is about five million.
Deportation demolishes hopes
Zaidan said that the Turkish security services arrested him at the Directorate of Migration Management of the city of Mersin while he was trying to obtain the Kimlik. Then he was deported to Idlib.
He explained that after being arrested for about 72 hours, he was forced to sign on voluntary return documents and he was deported to Syria on April 26.
During his detention, he was transferred among many deportation centers in different cities where Turkey had held hundreds of Syrians before deporting them to Syria through both border crossings with Syria Bab al-Salama and Bab al-Hawa.
Last week, the management of Bab al-Hawa Syrian border crossing revealed that the number of the deported Syrian refugees during April reached 1.323.
As a result, Zaidan was frustrated and got a psychotic break that “pushed me to commit a suicide due to the financial distress I am in after I borrowed the money for my trip to Turkey,” he said.
He added that he was no more able to support his family of five members.
“It is hard to see your family lacking all basics for a good life as you are standing helpless cannot provide them with their needs,” he explained.
Two weeks ago Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a project to settle about one million Syrian refugees in 13 areas on Syrian soil along Turkey’s southern border. The project extends from the city of Azaz in the west reaching to Sere Kaniye in the east.
The Syrian refugees will be settled in areas from which the original inhabitants were displaced by Turkish military operations.
Public and official resentment arouses over the Turkish project that aims at altering the local demographics to the detriment of the Kurds.
Turkish military operations against Afrin in 2018, and Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad in 2019 displaced thousands of hundreds of original inhabitants.
Deporting university students
The Turkish authorities periodically launch campaigns to arrest Syrians, who have not register for temporary protection or receive the Kimlik upon entering Turkey; they fill reports against them and deport them to Syria.
The 28-year-old Bara’ Qadour, an IDP deported to Idlib, was forced to sign on the voluntary return document after the Turkish police arrested him while on his way to visit his sick mother in a hospital in Gaziantep.
On April 6, the Turkish security apparatuses arrested the young man, who is a third year medicine student, in the city of Antakya under the pretext of not obtaining a travel authorization and he was detained for 24 hours and then was transferred to Idlib.
In case he is absent from the college without a permission, Qadour will be dismissed. As a result his future and education will be ruined, according to him.
He added that university students enjoy immunity from deportation. However, though Qadour obtained a student ID and the Kimlik, the Turkish security did not care.
“They confiscated the two cards and forced me to sign the voluntary return document,” he said.
The medicine student called on the Syrian human rights activists and influential organizations to work on his issue in order to help him return to his university and compensate the lectures that he missed.