Most Syrian refugees in Turkey are watching the new leadership before returning home : NPR

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has had an impact beyond Syria. Turkey, Syria’s neighbor to the north, has been hosting over 3 million Syrian refugees for over a decade. Now at least 50,000 Syrians have left Turkey since the Assad regime fell. that‘s according to Turkish authorities. But many others are still hesitant about going home. NPR’s Fatma Tanis visited the Turkey-Syria border and joins us now from Gaziantep, which is in southern Turkey. Hi there.

FATMA TANIS, BYLINE: Hi.

SUMMERS: So, Fatma, start by just telling us a bit about the scene at the border and what you heard from Syrians.

TANIS: You know, I saw a stream of Syrian families being dropped off at the border crossing by taxi or by friends. They had mountains of luggage with them. Some even brought refrigerators or air conditioners to take back to Syria. These are the ones who were planning to go back for good. There was a lot of excitement, a lot of joy. One elderly woman I spoke to, Huriye Kamal Eldin – she couldn’t hold back tears when I asked her why she wanted to go back.

HURIYE KAMAL ELDIN: (Speaking Arabic).

TANIS: “Life has been good here, but it’s enough. Our homeland is calling us,” she says. She and her husband were going back together, but her kids and her grandchildren are staying here in Turkey. Other people told me they’re leaving because of rising costs of living here, and some had special permits to check out the situation in Syria. The Turkish government has allowed each refugee family to visit Syria up to three times before they make a final decision. Now, what I heard from authorities at the border, though, was that the number of returnees has slowed down over the past couple of weeks.

SUMMERS: What have you heard from Syrians who are not choosing to go back immediately?

TANIS: So I’ve been talking to Syrians in several cities in Turkey over the past month, and nearly all told me they wanted to eventually go back. But they had various concerns. Syria is still not a united country. There’s potential for conflict, they said. Some cited the lack of basic resources like electricity, running water, housing, jobs. And many Syrian families have children who spent most of their lives in Turkey. They don’t speak Arabic. They don’t feel connected to their parents’ homeland, and that’s another hurdle for Syrian families.

SUMMERS: What have you heard from Turkish citizens? How are they reacting to all of this?

TANIS: Many here want the refugees to go back. There’s been a big shift among the Turkish public, which had initially welcomed the refugees with open arms back in 2012, but no one expected that they’d be here so long and not even the refugees themselves. And when the Turkish economy took a turn for the worse a few years ago, we saw that shift in public opinion. You know, refugees here are entitled to benefits like free health care and education.

And recently, tensions within the Turkish public reached a boiling point. We started to see more and more cases of racism and discrimination against Syrians here. But, Juana, what’s interesting now, though, is that after the fall of Assad, when all the news reports came out about the torture in the prisons and the mass graves, there’s been some sympathy for Syrians. I’ve heard this from both Turks and Syrians. There’s this new understanding of why they had to be here all these years. But how long that’s going to last is unclear.

SUMMERS: Right. And how does this impact the Turkish government’s approach to Syria?

TANIS: Well, a big part of Turkish strategy in Syria is to support an environment where refugees can return to. The Turkish government is doing everything it can for the new administration in Damascus to survive. It backed the Syrian opposition for years, and it now enjoys influence over the new leadership. This week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized opposition figures in Turkey who were pushing for a forced return of Syrian refugees. He said that people would have a choice. But analysts say it might take years for Syria to stabilize and years for refugees to return home.

SUMMERS: That’s NPR’s Fatma Tanis reporting from Southern Turkey. Thank you so much.

TANIS: Thank you.

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