Europe is caught in a crisis it cannot contain. After years of discouraging and strict asylum laws, refugees are now traveling there by the thousands.
They want to get away from war, but at the same time they are misinformed. When I spoke to Syrians wanting to leave the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan, I found out they had misconceptions about the rules and regulations awaiting refugees in the EU. They had been told by those who had reached Europe that it will be easy, and that they will be provided with a house and a job.
I spoke to a Syrian mother who had taken her 6-year-old daughter with her on a boat from Bodrum in Turkey to the Greek Island of Kos, before stepping for fear of drowning. I asked her how she could risk splitting the family by leaving her husband and son behind. She was convinced that they would be allowed to join her in a couple of months and that the authorities would even pay for their ticket.
Migrants have for decades been lured by stories of an easy ride to permanent residence. But these stories omit the hardship, the camps, the long wait, the bureaucracy, the animosity, the prohibition to work whilst still in process, the negative decisions on their case to be appealed and often lost.
Yet again refugees take the same bait. Facebook is playing a major role in making this trip attractive and telling people of the possibilities, the routes and costs.
Jenan Moussa, a colleague who spent six weeks among refugees in Turkey found out that many of them listed the abovementioned reasons for fleeing.
Most of the Syrians she met had prepared for and organised their trip based on information friends shared on Facebook on how they had reached Europe.
Many smugglers are on Facebook, Whatsapp and Viber. There are Facebook pages in Arabic that list smugglers’ contact information, routes and departure schedule.
After four years of war with no end in sight, an increasing number of Syrians are sick and tired of it and want to leave, and when they find the trip relatively cheaper and safer than before, they go for it, says Moussa.
A year ago a 1,800-kilometre trip by boat from Turkey or Egypt to Italy cost Syrians some US$6,000 per person, but this changed in 2015 when they discovered the Turkey-Greece-Balkans-EU-route. The cost is much lower at 2500 dollars, and the boat trip from Bodrum is less than twenty kilometres. It’s not only cheaper; but also less risky as it avoids the dangerous tides of the Mediterranean Sea.
Smuggling is now an open business and refugees can choose which one to deal with. One smuggler offers on Facebook a boat trip ‘Istanbul-Greece, $1200’ or ‘land trip Istanbul-Greece, €1800’. A direct trip by land from Istanbul to Germany, costing €6000 per person: “only 1 hour walking, the rest by car”.
And then there is the economics side. Some of those who have made it to Europe claim that the refugee allowance is higher than any salary or aid Syrians may get at home or in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon. Many middle class Syrian refugees do not stay in the camps but rent apartments, eating away their savings. And those in the camps often live in misery because international donors have also run out of money.
As Moussa says, they have few options: To go back to Syria, sit in a tent or to go to Europe where they expect benefits and a temporary travel document.
That’s why so many have ended up at a fence in Hungary they cannot climb, in camps like prisons, at closed borders. They wait, protest, and appeal to humanity. For many, there is no going back. They have spent the last of their savings, or borrowed to repay once in Europe - not realizing they might not even get in.
What we witness is the desperation of thousands who did not see through the lies and false stories. At this point they have nothing to lose but hope, and so they may settle for anything better than the life they left.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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