Faizel Patel – 03/08/2021
Syrian refugee Taha Taqtawi who returned home after five years has lost everything and is currently fighting for his life in a coma.
Yusuf Selman from Middle East Eye was speaking to Radio Islam about the dire circumstances of Syrian refugees being told to return to their country by Turkey’s main opposition party claiming that the civil-war ridden nation is now a place of relative safety.
Taqtawi heeded these calls in 2019 and moved back to Idlib, which is under sporadic Syrian government and Russian aerial and artillery attacks.
Selman says Taqtawi was optimistic about returning back to his hometown, studying pharmacy and married Maryam Barakat who he met at Idlib University.
Selman says barely a week after Taqtawi’s long awaited marriage, a Russian or Syrian artillery shelling destroyed their home.
“Right now Taha is in a coma, he’s not conscious, he’s at a hospital in Turkey’s south, unfortunately Maryam lost her life. Also Taha’s several relatives, sister, mother lost their lives because all those people were at the couples home just to congratulate them.”
Selman says Turkey’s main opposition party’s claims of Syria being a place of relative safety is an exaggerated interpretation of the refugee issue in Turkey, which consists of registered Syrian refugees and unregistered foreign refugees from other countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The man opposition party kind of exploits the second type of refugee problems as if they are caused by Syrians. So they have been calling on Syrians to go back to their homes, however as I had indicated in the story, it is impossible.”
Selman says despite calls for the Syrian refugees repatriation, international agreements and Turkey’s own laws require full safety in their homeland before refugees can be returned permanently.
Listen to the interview with Yusuf Selman
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