Inside Out and Back Again I Will Not Risk Fleeing With My Children on a Rickety Boat Poem
For Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, feel of Syrian refugees in Scandinavia is a cautionary tale
STOCKHOLM: Of the millions of Syrians displaced past civil war since 2011, a significant minority has managed to attain Europe, escaping not simply violence and persecution but as well forced army conscription and poverty.
Fifty-fifty in the initial phase of the inflow of the moving ridge of humanity, many European countries closed their borders. Just along with Germany, the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark were amidst the virtually welcoming.
In September 2014, images of the drowned toddler Alan Kurdi lying face up down in the Mediterranean surf near Bodrum in Turkey collection dwelling house the terrible truth about the Syrian ceremonious state of war.
A graffiti by artists Justus Becker and Oguz Sen depicts the drowned Syrian refugee male child Alan Kurdi at the harbor in Frankfurt am Primary, Germany, on March 10, 2016. (AFP)
That same month, the Swedish Migration Authority announced that all Syrian refugees applying for asylum would be granted permanent residency on arrival.
"Our assessment is that the conflict will not end in the near future," Anders Danielsson, the agency's director full general, told national radio at the fourth dimension. "Therefore, international law dictates that they should receive permanent residency permits."
Following the announcement, the number of Syrians applying for asylum in Sweden rose from 30,000 in 2014 to 51,000 in 2015, co-ordinate to government figures. Neighboring Denmark likewise saw an increase during 2015, processing most 21,000 asylum applications.
But 6 years on, the pendulum of public opinion has swung far in the reverse direction.
Along with Germany, the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark were among the nearly welcoming to Syrian refugees. (AFP file photo)
"Denmark went beginning down the nationalist-populist route, followed past Kingdom of norway," Swedish socialist MP Ali Esbati told Arab News.
Esbati fears his own state is beginning to follow adjust. "This is due in part to many people in Sweden feeling that we did what we could in 2015 and took the responsibleness that a rich country should have, while other countries did not."
Indeed, every bit the state of affairs in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan once more brings the issue of European asylum policy to the fore, the political mood in Sweden is a far cry from the receptiveness of 2015.
"We will never go dorsum to 2015. Sweden will not find itself in that situation again," Stefan Lofven, Sweden'southward prime minister, told the national daily Dagens Nyheter on Aug. 18, 3 days subsequently the Taliban seized Kabul.
Afghans gather on a roadside nigh Kabul airport on August twenty, 2021, hoping to abscond from the country later on the Taliban's military takeover of Afghanistan. (AFP)
Esbati said that what upsets him most about the comments is the lack of acknowledgement of Sweden'south success in welcoming and integrating Syrians.
Among those who fled to Scandinavia in 2015 was Abdulla Miri. Desperate to avoid conscription into the Syrian regime's war machine, Miri chose to flee to Europe, promising his fiancee Nour he would become her out, also.
Refugee Abdulla Miri
"I'd paid so many bribes that my money was running out," he said, speaking to Arab News at his home in Stockholm.
Read the second part of the report: Scandinavia'south cold shoulder
Miri recalls an incident shortly after his inflow in Denmark en route to Sweden when he noticed 2 police officers watching him. "This was earlier I started to dress like a Scandinavian, so it was pretty obvious to them that I was a refugee," he said.
"I thought I was in problem, just the police officers helped me buy a ticket to Sweden. They knew that almost all the refugees wanted to cross the bridge to Sweden, so the 3 of united states of america just laughed about the situation."
Nine months later, Sweden granted Miri political aviary.
The Syrian refugee crisis began in March 2011 after a brutal regime crackdown on protests in support of a grouping of teenagers who were rounded upward over the appearance of anti-government graffiti in the southern boondocks of Daraa.
The arrests sparked public demonstrations throughout Syria, which were violently suppressed by security forces. The disharmonize quickly escalated and the state descended into a civil war that forced millions of Syrians from their homes.
Syrian refugees have sought asylum in more than 130 countries, just most live in neighboring states: Turkey, Lebanon, Hashemite kingdom of jordan, Republic of iraq and Egypt. Turkey has the largest share of the refugee population, today sheltering around 3.6 million people.
European countries collectively host around a one thousand thousand Syrian refugees, with 70 percent hosted by just 2 countries: Germany with 59 percentage and Sweden with 11 percentage. Austria, Greece, kingdom of the netherlands and French republic host between 2 and 5 percent, while other countries host beneath 2 percent.
Well-nigh refugees from Middle Eastern and African states reach Europe by trekking overland from Turkey via Bulgaria and Romania, or past crossing the Mediterranean on rickety boats operated by people traffickers.
At least one,146 people died attempting to achieve Europe by sea in the kickoff six months of 2021, according to the International Organization for Migration — more than than double the number during the same flow in 2020, when 513 migrants are known to have drowned.
Those who survive the perilous journeying get a mixed reception. Many trying to reach the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, for instance, tend to discover themselves stranded at the French port of Calais in squalid makeshift camps. For the most function, those who choose to settle in Germany or the Nordic states are afforded international protection status.
INNUMBERS
half dozen.6 million Syrian refugees worldwide, of whom 5.6 one thousand thousand are hosted by neighboring countries.
1,146 Asylum-seekers who drowned attempting to reach Europe in the starting time vi months of 2021.
Since the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011, well over a one thousand thousand international protection decisions on applications by Syrians have been taken by asylum authorities in European union+ countries, according to UNHCR.
Withal, economical bug, a spate of Islamist terrorist attacks, and a sense that migrant communities have failed to fully integrate have led to a rise in correct-wing populism in many European states, causing the welcoming spirit exhibited in 2015 to ebb away.
Nawal Abdo Hadid, a 62-year-old Syrian who lives in the quiet Copenhagen suburb of Gentofte, has been told her residency permit volition not be renewed considering the Danish authorities consider the state of affairs in Syria no longer dangerous.
Nawal Abdo Hadid
"When I got the letter of the alphabet, I had a heart assail," Hadid told Arab News. In addition to her eye problems, Hadid suffers from asthma, which makes it difficult to climb the three flights of stairs upwards to her i-room apartment. Her home is sparsely decorated, giving the impression of a life spent in perpetual limbo.
Hadid believes her return to Syria could be a death penalty because of her posts on social media that are disquisitional of the government. A neighbor whom she defendant of existence a pro-Assad "criminal" has threatened Hadid and her son, who nonetheless lives in Syria with his six children.
"I oasis't seen my grandchildren for more than half dozen years," she said. "I'd rather die alone in Kingdom of denmark than go back to Syria and put my son'due south family at hazard."
Miri's state of affairs could not exist more dissimilar. On receiving his Swedish citizenship in July 2017 afterwards v years in the country, he flew to Beirut to ally Nour and then brought her home with him to Stockholm.
Although Sweden suffers from a shortage of affordable housing, the couple accept been fortunate. A widower rented them the ground floor of his home in an affluent Stockholm suburb.
"Having him in our lives is a blessing," Nour told Arab News. "I can always enquire him for help and he is something of a father figure for us."
Nawal Abdo Hadid's dwelling house in Sweden. (Supplied)
Nour, who studied English literature in Damascus and who loves the poet Lord Byron, has already begun to observe Swedish authors.
"Everything I don't remember," by the celebrated writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri, himself the son of a Tunisian immigrant, has left a singled-out impression. "He understands what moving between countries does to the soul," Nour said.
Miri, who at present uses his Swedish nickname "Abbe," speaks flawless Swedish. Nour's Swedish has a barely detectable Arabic emphasis although she struggles at times to notice the right words.
Every year, on June half-dozen, Miri hosts a Swedish National Day political party for their friends. Native Swedes practice not usually bother with the vacation, and then the gatherings are something of a novelty.
"My Swedish friends don't even call it National Day any longer," he said. "They call information technology Abbe's Day instead."
Miri'south journey will exist difficult for hereafter asylum-seekers to mimic. On June 23, the Swedish parliament canonical a new immigration bill that makes temporary residency permits the norm, merely like the Danish arrangement.
"We need an entirely new political (framework) in gild for people to exist included in social club and to settle in," Maria Malmer Stenergard, an clearing policy spokesperson for the conservative Moderate Party, recently told national radio.
"We take to start by decreasing clearing."
Still, hope springs eternal. On the windowsill of Miri and Nour's home sits a pile of books on pregnancy and parenthood. They arrived as a gift from a Swedish neighbor when she learned the couple were expecting their commencement child.
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• This is the first of a ii-role series. Next: What Afghan asylum-seekers can wait.
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Source: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1949706/world