Aid-Starved Syria Refugees Desert Mideast for Europe
After escaping a devastating war, frustrated Syrian refugees in aid-starved neighboring states say they must now choose between joining an exodus to Europe or "returning home to die".
Millions of Syrians have found shelter in surrounding countries including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan that are now struggling to cope with the massive influx.
A lack of jobs and humanitarian assistance means that many are now giving up on their host nations.
"What do they expect us to do, to die in silence?" said Mohammed al-Hariri, who lives in Jordan's vast Zaatari desert refugee camp.
"Syrians now have two choices: either to return and die in their country or to emigrate," he said.
Around 340,000 migrants reached the EU's borders in the seven months to July, in the continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II, with hundreds perishing at sea.
Most are escaping the more than four-year-old conflict in Syria that has claimed over 240,000 lives, and more are expected to follow.
"From the Syrians we have interviewed this year it is clear that many are contemplating making a dangerous journey to try to reach Europe through North Africa or Turkey," said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"Many said they feel that a lack of humanitarian assistance plus an inability to legally work in surrounding countries forces them to choose between a return to the conflict zone in Syria or to attempt a dangerous journey to Europe."
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates that more than four million Syrians have fled the bloodshed which broke out in March 2011, mostly to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey but also Egypt and Iraq.
The host countries are struggling to cope, especially in the absence of sufficient international aid, said Andrew Harper, the UNHCR representative in Jordan.
"If you do not provide resources to countries like Jordan to meet assistant obligations and protection obligations then people will move to where they can find that and that is why people are moving to Europe," he said.
More than 1.1 million Syrians have flooded across the border into Lebanon and around 600,000 into Jordan, according to the UNHCR. Amman puts the figure at 1.4 million, making up 20 percent of the resources-poor kingdom's population.
Jordan and Lebanon have repeatedly appealed for increased aid to ease the burden.
But a U.N. donation drive for 2015 has so far only raised 41 percent of the target figures, forcing the World Food Program to trim its assistance to Syrian refugees in both Lebanon and Jordan.
Refugees are "losing the sense of hope that they can be properly assisted. They have challenges in getting access to legal work, challenges in accessing education and so people are saying it is better either to return back to Syria or to move forward to Europe", said Harper.
He said a new pattern was emerging this year of more refugees returning to Syria than crossing in the opposite direction, with only a few dozen a day arriving in Jordan compared with 200 leaving.
Abu al-Yaman, spokesman for the refugees in the Zaatari camp, said many Syrian families were leaving for Turkey as a transit route to Europe after paying thousands of dollars to people traffickers.
Aid has been "progressively reduced" to refugees who lack health services and schooling for their children, while adults are deprived of the right to work, he added.
Hariri, a native of conflict-riven Daraa in southern Syria, said that the road to Europe is risky, "but some people cannot take it anyone, especially as the world is ignoring our suffering and humanitarian aid is grower scarcer".
Source: Agence France Presse
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