Syrians Dream of Crossing Turkish Border to Get to Europe

The Turkish border seen from the town of Al-Darbasiyah, north of Syria (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Turkish border seen from the town of Al-Darbasiyah, north of Syria (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Syrians Dream of Crossing Turkish Border to Get to Europe

The Turkish border seen from the town of Al-Darbasiyah, north of Syria (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Turkish border seen from the town of Al-Darbasiyah, north of Syria (Asharq Al-Awsat)

For Syrians, crossing the border into Turkey has become a core solution to escaping the hell raised in war-torn Syria. Running away from a decade of war, many Syrians hope that by crossing into Turkey, they will have a better life in their final destination, Europe.

In some cases, monitored by Asharq Al-Awsat, Turkish border guards showed unmatched cruelty in their methods used to stop Syrians from crossing into Turkey. Dozens of Syrians, including women and children, were subject to beating and torture.

Turkish guards have even resorted to tossing Syrians off high altitudes while they were trying to cross the border.

Last August, civil bodies and human rights organizations documented the killing of six Syrian civilians, including a child.

According to data collected by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, at least 26 civilians, including a woman and six children, have been killed in Idlib and Hasaka governorates since the beginning of 2021.

This brings the death toll to about 500 civilians who have died trying to cross the border into Turkey since the spring of 2011.

On the eve of August 30, Salar Adnan Othman, who is a local from Qamishli, a city in northeastern Syria on the Syria-Turkey border, was killed by Turkish guards, leaving his parents with nothing but pictures to remind them of their son.

“That night, after 45 minutes had passed, the (Kurdish) Autonomous Administration’s border security forces called us and said that they had taken Salar to the hospital in the town of Amuda,” Othman’s father told Asharq Al-Awsat.

After taking x-rays and doing tests, Othman evidently was found to be severely beaten at the hands of the Turkish gendarmerie.

Because of his critical condition, he was immediately transferred to the central hospital in Qamishli, where he died because of his severe injuries.

Despite the danger involved in the journey, the Syrian-Turkish border has recently recorded a spike in the number of civilians attempting to smuggle their way into Turkey.



Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
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Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The warning came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day" Friday and that "one doctor and some patients were injured".

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.