First batch of Syrians stranded in Algeria arrives in Syria’s Kobani
KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – First batch of Syrians stranded in Algeria arrived on Tuesday in the city of Kobani, northern Syria.
Early in November, a video went viral on social media, showing young men, said to be Syrians deported to Niger’s desert by Algeria, suffering grave conditions.
Mustafa Abdi, an official of Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria, told North Press that the first batch included six young men from Kobani, including a survivor of a boat sank near the city of Oran, Algeria.
On October 5, a boat carrying Syrian migrants, who were heading towards Europe, sank off the coast of Algeria near the port of Oran, killing at least 18 Syrians, most of whom were from Kobani.
After many appeals made by the victims’ families, Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) formed the committee tasked with retrieving the bodies and took upon itself to incur all expenses.
Muhammad Shahin, Co-chair of the AANES’ Executive Council in Euphrates Region, said, “We opened diplomatic channels and did our best to return the bodies to their families.”
On October 20, the Commander in Chief of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, called on Syrians, who hail from areas in north and east Syria and trapped in Algeria, to return to their homeland, expressing readiness to provide all needed facilitations for their “safe and dignified return.”
On November 9, the bodies of Syrians who died in a migrant boat sank off the Algerian coast arrived to their hometown of Kobani and were buried near their relatives.
Abdi said that another batch, including 12 individuals, is expected to arrive in the coming days.
“Registration process is still ongoing to receive repatriation requests,” Abdi added.
There are 20 individuals willing to return, but they do not have passports because they illegally accessed Algeria and they cannot return without a visa, according to Abdi.
He said that the government of Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) raised the price of the visa to $300, as most of those who want to return prefer to pass through KRI, in order not to be arrested by Syrian government in case they pass through its-held areas.
However, Abdi did not mention the way through which the refugees were returned to Kobani.
Violations Documentation Center sought, through mediators in the KRI, to exempt the stranded Syrians from the visa or reducing its price, but to no avail, according to Abdi.
He stated that the returned individuals “are victims of human trafficking, who were deceived and their money was stolen, as each person lost about $10.000, in exchange for promises from smugglers to be transferred by boats from coastal cities in Algeria to Spain.”