The Struggle For Life Between Borders: Syrian Refugees

The Struggle For Life Between Borders: Syrian Refugees PDF

Author: Mehmet Güçer

Publisher: International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)

Published: 2013-05-01

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 6054030841

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Before long, the voice of the Tunisian youth was heard and found supporters not only in its own country but also in neighboring countries with similar characteristics. The riots spread in waves. The protests which began in Tunisia and later spread to Egypt, Libya, and other Arab countries were referred to as the “Arab Spring,” and the subsequent regime changes they caused in these countries were closely observed in the international community. This multivariable equation was viewed primarily as a political issue in the international arena. That is, until the riots in Syria transformed into clashes. The reverberations of the Arab Spring in Syria gradually manifested themselves as a huge humanitarian crisis due to the harsh crackdowns by the Assad regime. Eventually, a group of 252 Syrians broke through the wire fence on the border of Hatay’s Yayladağı district on the evening of Friday, 29 April 2011, to enter Turkey and request asylum, putting the question “do we have a refugee crisis on our hands?” on Turkey’s agenda. Turkey’s Syrian refugee issue, which began with 252 people in April 2011, has since acquired a new degree of magnitude with the more than 500,000 Syrians in Turkey today. The bigger picture including Syria’s neighbors is even more alarming: the number of Syrians who’ve fled their country due to the ongoing civil war in Syria since March 2011 is over one million. United Nations (UN) sources estimate that there are at least 4.6 million internally-displaced people within Syria, though according to some Syrian sources, the figure is closer to seven million. An estimated 7,000 people flee to neighboring countries daily. Moreover, the UN estimates that by the end of 2013, the number of Syrians in Turkey alone will reach one million.

Turkey and Syrian Refugees: The Limits of Hospitality

Turkey and Syrian Refugees: The Limits of Hospitality PDF

Author: Osman Bahadır Dinçer

Publisher: International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13:

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On April 29, 2011, the first Syrian refugees crossed the border into Turkey. Two years later, the country hosts some 600,000 Syrian refugees—200,000 of them living in 21 refugee camps with an additional 400,000 living outside of the camps (see charts 1 and 2 below). These estimates, reported by both the Turkish government and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), are conservative. Indeed, officials working directly with refugees on the ground suggest that the number living outside of the camps may be as high as 800,000. These numbers are increasing: according to United Nations (UN) estimates, Turkey will be home to one million Syrians by the end of 2013. Syrians have fled to Turkey in search of safety from a horrific conflict, leaving behind loved ones, jobs and property. Syrians from all walks of life - doctors and housewives, civil servants and farmers, the very old and the very young - have poured across the Turkish border. The Turkish people and the government, mainly through the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), responded generously to the refugees, offering them sanctuary and hospitality. But as the conflict intensifies – with no end in sight – and as the resources of the Turkish government and society are stretched thin, questions arise about the limits of Turkey's hospitality. The continued deterioration of the situation inside Syria is putting enormous pressures on Turkey’s ability to manage the refugee situation within its borders as well as its capacity to ensure the continued flow of humanitarian assistance into Syria. This policy brief is based on a joint Brookings-USAK research trip to the border region by Elizabeth Ferris, Kemal Kirişci, Vittoria Federici, Osman Bahadır Dinçer, Sema Karaca and Elif Özmenek Çarmıklı and interviews conducted in Istanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, Kilis and Hatay. It also draws from a joint Brookings-USAK seminar held in Ankara on 25 October 2013 which brought together some 45 participants from the Turkish government, civil society, national and international NGOs, international organizations and academic researchers. The authors hope that this policy brief will be helpful to both the Turkish government and civil society organizations and to international actors seeking to aid Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The impact of the Syrian refugee influx on Turkey is significant and deserves more attention from the international community. Most of all, the authors hope that political solutions are found that will bring an end to the massive displacement of the Syrian people.

After the Last Border

After the Last Border PDF

Author: Jessica Goudeau

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0525559140

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"Simply brilliant, both in its granular storytelling and its enormous compassion" --The New York Times Book Review The story of two refugee families and their hope and resilience as they fight to survive and belong in America The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries--yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the twenty-first century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas. Mu Naw, a Christian from Myanmar struggling to put down roots with her family, was accepted after decades in a refugee camp at a time when America was at its most open to displaced families; and Hasna, a Muslim from Syria, agrees to relocate as a last resort for the safety of her family--only to be cruelly separated from her children by a sudden ban on refugees from Muslim countries. Writer and activist Jessica Goudeau tracks the human impacts of America's ever-shifting refugee policy as both women narrowly escape from their home countries and begin the arduous but lifesaving process of resettling in Austin--a city that would show them the best and worst of what America has to offer. After the Last Border situates a dramatic, character-driven story within a larger history--the evolution of modern refugee resettlement in the United States, beginning with World War II and ending with current closed-door policies--revealing not just how America's changing attitudes toward refugees have influenced policies and laws, but also the profound effect on human lives.

Spoils of War in the Arab East

Spoils of War in the Arab East PDF

Author: Aziz Al-Azmeh

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-01-11

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 0755649109

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Post-conflict scenarios are often proposed for Arab countries that have witnessed significant changes and civil wars. Yet the plans for reconciliation, transitional justice, and the return of the displaced often overlook the real conditions that make these recommendations impossible. This book provides a critical analysis of current post-conflict frameworks for Syria and Iraq. Drawing on empirical research, the book shows that reconciliation and reconstruction scenarios need to be considered alongside the realities on the ground. It argues that Iraq and Syria exist in a condition of 'conflict transformation' rather than of 'conflict termination', because the extreme changes that accompanied these countries into war continue long after the conflicts end. Furthermore, the chapters highlight why experts should not seek solutions in culturalist terms and ancestral enmities, or rely on the wartime status quo. Rather, they should look to the specific military, political, economic and socio-cultural conditions that require different solutions. A critical analysis of existing post-conflict frameworks, their applicability and their potential outcomes in Iraq and Syria, the book is a vital contribution to post-conflict studies. It highlights the need for new approaches to reconstruction and peacebuilding in Arab countries and points to how they should be found.

The Syrian Refugee Crisis

The Syrian Refugee Crisis PDF

Author: Danilo Mandić

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-10-21

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1000755444

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The Syrian war, the 21st century’s most protracted and second-deadliest conflict, has driven 5.6 million refugees and 6.6 million internally displaced into flight. As the civil war draws to a close, an autopsy of this historic and unprecedented refugee episode becomes feasible. Why did the war generate so many refugees? How did so many of them get to Europe? Who are these people, and why did they leave? From whom were they fleeing and why? Did European policymakers alleviate or aggravate the refugee crisis? The Syrian Refugee Crisis argues that Syrian forced migration has been deeply misunderstood. Against conventional wisdom, it suggests that refugees engaged smugglers not just as traffickers or criminal exploiters but as natural allies and means to affirm asylum rights; that the politicization of refugees according to major actors’ foreign policy priorities obfuscated the role of US and European foreign policy in generating massive displacement; and that restrictionist border policies on the Balkan Route were inhumane, incoherent, and counter-productive. Relying on extensive, rare fieldwork data from five countries comprising the Balkan Route (Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, and Germany), this book sheds light on the understudied, counter-intuitive, and often-misunderstood dynamics of forced migration, refugee agency, border restrictionism, anti-smuggling policy, and migrant decision-making in the 21st century.

Violent Borders

Violent Borders PDF

Author: Reece Jones

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2016-10-11

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1784784729

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A major new exploration of the refugee crisis, focusing on how borders are formed and policed Forty thousand people have died trying to cross between countries in the past decade, and yet international borders only continue to harden. The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union; the United States elected a president who campaigned on building a wall; while elsewhere, the popularity of right-wing antimigrant nationalist political parties is surging. Reece Jones argues that the West has helped bring about the deaths of countless migrants, as states attempt to contain populations and limit access to resources and opportunities. “We may live in an era of globalization,” he writes, “but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people.” In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and the dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the ailing decolonized world, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality. Newly updated with a discussion of Brexit and the Trump administration.

Refugee Encounters at the Turkish-Syrian Border

Refugee Encounters at the Turkish-Syrian Border PDF

Author: Şule Can

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0429686846

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The Turkish-Syrian borderlands host almost half of the Syrian refugees, with an estimated 1.5 million people arriving in the area following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. This book investigates the ongoing negotiations of ethnicity, religion and state at the border, as refugees struggle to settle and to navigate their encounters with the Turkish state and with different sectarian groups. In particular, the book explores the situation in Antakya, the site of the ancient city of Antioch, the "cradle of civilizations", and now populated by diverse populations of Arab Alawites, Christians and Sunni-Turks. The book demonstrates that urban refugee encounters at the margins of the state reveal larger concerns that encompass state practices and regional politics. Overall, the book shows how and why displacement in the Middle East is intertwined with negotiations of identity, politics and state. Faced with an environment of everyday oppression, refugees negotiate their own urban space and "refugee" status, challenging, resisting and sometimes confirming sectarian boundaries. This book’s detailed analysis will be of interest to anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, historians, and Middle Eastern studies scholars who are working on questions of displacement, cultural boundaries and the politics of civil war in border regions.

National Rhetorics in the Syrian Immigration Crisis

National Rhetorics in the Syrian Immigration Crisis PDF

Author: Clarke Rountree

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1628953705

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The Syrian refugee crisis seriously challenged countries in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere in the world. It provoked reactions from humanitarian generosity to anti-immigrant warnings of the destruction of the West. It contributed to the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” from the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. This book is a unique study of rhetorical responses to the crisis through a comparative approach that analyzes the discourses of leading political figures in ten countries, including gateway, destination, and tertiary countries for immigration, such as Turkey, several European countries, and the United States. These national discourses constructed the crisis and its refugees so as to welcome or shun them, in turn shaping the character and identity of the receiving countries, for both domestic and international audiences, as more or less humanitarian, nationalist, Muslim-friendly, Christian, and so forth. This book is essential reading for scholars wishing to understand how European and other countries responded to this crisis, discursively constructing refugees, themselves, and an emerging world order.

Not by Bread Alone

Not by Bread Alone PDF

Author: Robert Nalbandov

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2016-01-01

Total Pages: 591

ISBN-13: 161234710X

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Since its independence in 1991, Russia has struggled with the growing pains of defining its role in international politics. After Vladimir Putin ascended to power in 2000, the country undertook grandiose foreign policy projects in an attempt to delineate its place among the world’s superpowers. With this in mind, Robert Nalbandov examines the milestones of Russia’s international relations since the turn of the twenty-first century. He focuses on the specific goals, engagement practices, and tools used by Putin’s administration to promote Russia’s vital national and strategic interests in specific geographic locations. His findings illuminate Putin’s foreign policy objective of reinstituting Russian global strategic dominance. Nalbandov argues that identity-based politics have dominated Putin’s tenure and that Russia’s east/west split is reflected in Asian-European politics. Nalbandov’s analysis shows that unchecked domestic power, an almost exclusive application of hard power, and determined ambition for unabridged global influence and a defined place as a world superpower are the keys to Putin’s Russia.