Istanbul refugee communities survive on solidarity

ISTANBUL — Across from Little Hagia Sophia Mosque in the Marmara Sea shorefront district of Kumkapı, once the toast of Armenian life behind the old walls of Istanbul, Mustafa Mohammedi stands in the rain outside a three-story apartment building, welcoming guests to their new home. 

Hailing from a patchwork of countries among them, the refugees speak in slow, but competent Turkish – a native language for none, but a common language for all. They now share a walkup apartment converted from what was once a boutique hotel, with its baby blue window frames and rooftop terrace. 

The coronavirus pandemic has slowed daily life to a crawl. With borders closed, and lockdowns continuing, refugees without homes, money or many opportunities, safe houses like this throughout the city are welcoming those who would otherwise have no place to go.

With an embarrassed smile, Mohammedi finally greets the guest of honor: Muhammed Sıddık Yaşar arrives to check up on Mohammedi and the 14 other refugees taking refuge in this house in Kumkapi, originally from Iran and Afghanistan. Yaşar’s community-based organization, Tarlabaşı Solidarity Association (TSA), has paid their month’s rent in advance through private donations. He brings with him a bag full of informational brochures on COVID-19 preparedness, hygienic products, including gloves, masks, and sanitizers as well as debit cards redeemable for groceries at a local shop.

TSA has grown since starting about ten years ago as a grassroots operation helping homeless and migrants in the eclectic neighborhood of Tarlabaşı in Istanbul’s historic Taksim district, where Roma, Kurdish and African residents shop together in open-air markets. They have no government funding, and can operate thanks to civil initiatives led by Istanbul-based activists working to protect the homeless and migrants. 

Upstairs, his young family and a dozen others sleep in two flats in close quarters, many on blankets emblazoned with the UNHCR logo draped over the floor. 

Mohammedi is wiry thin, 35-years-old with silvery gray hair. Formerly managing a fast food business in Tehran, he has spent four years as a refugee in Istanbul with his wife Mahdeli, and their 11-year-old son Ali Reza. 

“During the lockdown, there is no work. My pregnant wife has multiple sclerosis (MS),” he told Rudaw English. “I’m worried about her, and what will happen. We are safe today. We are not [living] outside, but for tomorrow, we are worried.”  

Seated atop a sheeted mattress crowded with his new flatmates, his back to the only window casting light from the overcast sky next to a broken TV, Mohammedi acted as a translator for the others. 

His petite wife, Mahdeli, smiled warmly on a couch across from Perima, an out-of-work primary school teacher from Herat province in Afghanistan. When asked if she was teaching online, or giving lessons to the children in her care, she responded in the negative. “Their heads are already full,” she said.

Yaşar and Muhammedi met each other while TSA was conducting fieldwork at Edirne's main bus station. It was Mohammedi’s first day moving into a furnished flat in Istanbul’s touristic neighborhood, known for its multicultural history and its meyhaneler; traditional bars where the portions are as excessive as the alcohol-fueled singing. 

On February 29, when Turkey opened its border with Greece, he crossed the border via Edirne. After two days, authorities forced him and pregnant Mahdeli to return to Turkey. The Greek border police forced many of the young men now sheltering with Mohammedi to march back, freezing in their underwear. For the next month, they all camped in the forests around Pazarkule, sleeping in tents given by local townsfolk and cooking pots of corn and sausage with fellow migrants from as far as Nigeria. 

“It was difficult to get a [Turkish] residence permit,” says Mohammedi, explaining his last attempt to immigrate to the EU, after which he endured a 22-day quarantine, together with his family and their community, in nearby Kırklareli. Their roundabout way from Pazarkule, to a refugee camp in the eastern Anatolian city of Malatya, and finally to an unfamiliar part of Istanbul has been disorienting. 

Now, faced with isolation measures through Ramadan, Mohammedi is caught between visits to the doctor for his ill and pregnant wife, as well as rendezvous in Kocaeli, 100 km from his shelter, where he is forced to present a rental agreement in order to renew his temporary protection status as a refugee in Turkey. 

But without work, and with plans to return to the border that Turkey is expected to reopen at the end of May, Mohammedi is between a rock and a hard place, at a loss for solutions. 

“When people came back from the border, they had no food. We were there before Kızılay — (the Turkish Red Crescent). Some were eating grass, some were tortured,” said Mohammed, who explained how TSA volunteers responded during the violence that ensued over the February 29 crossing. “Imagine, you have your kid with you, you are naked and they torture you. Or they torture your kid. There are cases of rape, and the killing of an African [migrant].” 

Before the lockdowns began, Mohammedi’s 11-year-old son had enrolled in a Turkish school, unabashedly practicing his multilingual skills. “I want to be a football player,” he said, blushing with laughter, when asked what career he would pursue. 

The group had met before, and in their familiarity exuded contentment punctuated with fleeting moments of grief. The three children present provided human comfort, affection, and a reason to smile. The youngest, 7-year-old Emir Ali, crawled from lap to lap.  

“I haven’t been able to see a doctor,” says Mahdeli, seven months into her pregnancy. “In Edirne, they said nothing is wrong, even though I have MS. At a [refugee] camp in Malatya, doctors would not see me because of distancing measures,” she told me.

The professional skills of the group were as broad as their welcome. Hofadam, husband to Perima, was an electrical engineer. Hossein, a 24-year-old butcher, sat slumped on one of the three beds over blanketed flooring, wearing a surgical mask. He was sandwiched by peers who worked as a welder and shoemaker. While calm, they had ample potential energy, poised as skilled workers ready to return to business. 

Kumkapı is a relatively safe place for Istanbul compared to Tarlabaşı or elsewhere in the municipality of Fatih, which has become known as a working-class district where refugees live alongside conservative Muslim communities. During COVID-19 lockdowns, they are careful to send out only two people at a time to look for work. 

“When we came here [to Istanbul], we came with expectations, hope,” said Hossein. “We have lost our hope.”  

They were mostly young men. Ehsan, from southern Iran, wielded his smartphone and exchanged numbers liberally, speaking English behind his mask. The eldest among them was Hasan Karami, a 48-year-old tailor. He left his wife and daughter in Tehran, fleeing violent riots around five months ago. “I will die to get to the EU for my children. I will settle in the Netherlands,” he repeated confidently. 

“We have already been to the border. We are not afraid of Coronavirus, compared to what we have lived,” said Karami. “At the border we lost everything.”  

A younger man, Ahmed, also left his wife and two kids in Iran. He lost his left leg below the knee after he suffered a motorcycle accident. Authorities at the Greek border had taken his phone. Like Karami, he has not been able to contact his family, a task that COVID-19 measures in Iran and Turkey have made more difficult. 

“We are sorry, because in our culture we are used to hosting guests,” Mohammedi said, unable to offer tea on their moving day, as everyone stood up in unison, hands clasped, eyes open, regarding their visitors with wholesome respect.     

As a community-based organization, TSA is based on volunteers and donations, yet with the help of social media, they currently help about 4,000 beneficiaries across the city. Yaşar and his colleagues also provide humanitarian aid to migrants along their route to the Greek border. However he is strict to note that TSA does not encourage illegal crossings. 

“During these times, we rent a lot of houses. We stay sometimes with the groups [of refugees] to understand their feelings and to help better,” said Yaşar, as he tested everyone in the room for COVID-19 symptoms with a handheld infrared thermometer gun. 

Tarlabaşı Solidarity Association is flattening the Coronavirus curve by going to refugees to lessen social interactions in public, allowing displaced people to stay safely isolated during government stay-at-home mandates. At the Kumkapı shelter, Yaşar also sets up video calls with local refugee lawyers to advise Mohammedi and others about their rights.  

“We have a partnership with every community-based organization in our area. I haven’t seen them as effective [as NGOs] in our district,” said Ibrahim Dizman, a donor relations employee at the Refugee and Asylum Seekers Assistance Solidarity Association (RASAS), established in 2014 to serve Sultanbeyli municipality and the greater Asian side of Istanbul.

“Working with the municipality, we are aware of everything. The spread of the Coronavirus [to refugees] is similar with the host Turkish population,” Dizman explained. “There is no specific budget from the central government. You have to find international funds, UN organizations, NGOs, wherever you can.”  

Among the 330,000 people living in Sultanbeyli, 20,000 are Syrian refugees — most from Aleppo, many illiterate — as well as nearly 3,000 refugees from 23 nationalities, including Iranians and Afghans. Since COVID-19 spiked in Turkey, RASAS closed its community center, and almost ninety percent of ground operations. 

“We have a team of social workers for emergency issues, where we are delivering food packages for extreme cases. We have a specific database, SUKOM, to follow up with everyone living in our district. We know their backgrounds, needs,” said Dizman. “We are also trying to raise their awareness about Coronavirus through different networks.” 

TSA serves refugees in worse conditions, for example in homes with leaking roofs, but everyone at the Kumkapı shelter expressed a desire to return to the Greek border, especially the parents in search of better work opportunities in the EU. 

“For now, we’ll wait, because it’s not the right time. But after the Coronavirus passes, we’ll try [to cross the border] again,” said Mohammedi.

Photography by Cerise Sudry-Le Dû
Editing by Shawn Carrié 

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