A Syrian girl looks out
train window that she lives with her family in the sprawling refugee and
migrant tent city of Idomeni, on Greece's northern border with
Macedonia, on May 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
DIDIMOTICHO, Greece—Europe seemed like the promised land,
worth risking their lives to reach. But in a muddy field on the northern
edge of Greece, their dreams died. Now, dozens of Syrian refugees are
risking their lives again but in the opposite direction—paying smugglers
to take them back to Turkey, and heading home.
Rather than brave the often treacherous waves of the Aegean again,
they face the dangerous currents of the Evros River, which runs along
the Greek-Turkish border. Each night, groups of migrants and refugees
huddle at the railway station of the small border town of Didimoticho,
about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the frontier, setting up small tents
and waiting for their chance to cross.
Among them is Atia Al Jassem, a 27-year-old Syrian barber from
Damascus who is heading east with his wife and 1-year-old daughter after
spending months stuck on the Greek-Macedonian border, watching his
hopes of reaching Europe ebb away.
“I am going to Turkey, I do not want Europe any more. Finished,” he
says, sitting in a small park near the railway station in Thessaloniki,
Greece’s main northern city, where he, his 20-year-old wife Yasmine
Ramadan and their daughter Legine, who they call Loulou, spend what they
hope will be their last night in the country.
“We are really tired. We’re destroyed and I have a baby. I ask God to
help me get back to Turkey,” he says. “In Syria under the bombs we
would be better off than here.”
The family arrived in Greece on Feb. 24, crossing the Aegean and then
making their way north. But their journey to Germany was cut short at
the Greek-Macedonian border.
Balkan and European countries increasingly tightened entry
restrictions at the start of the year, before shutting their land
borders to refugees completely in March. That trapped about 57,000
people in Greece, a country enduring a six-year financial crisis and
with unemployment running at around 24 percent. Few refugees want to
settle here.
Al Jassem and his family stayed for months in Idomeni, a sprawling
impromptu refugee camp that sprang up on the Greek-Macedonian border.
Authorities evacuated the camp last month, and the family were moved to
an official camp with thousands of others.
But months of living rough had sapped their morale and their resolve. They gave up the dream of a life in Germany.
“We did not expect we were going to be treated as such in Europe,”
said Al Jassem. “We thought they will be humane, looking after us and
after our children, protect our children. We though we will be helped,
but we found the opposite. Europe has no feeling for us at all.”
They decided to head to Turkey, where Al Jassem’s brother lives. But
like many others, they found there was no easy way back. Syrians cannot
be officially returned to their war-ravaged country, and the legal path
to Turkey would be lengthy and bureaucratic. So many opt for smugglers,
who migrants say now charge cut-price rates of just a few hundred euros
instead of thousands to be taken in the opposite direction.
“Recently we have observed a reverse flow of migrants and refugees
coming from Idomeni toward our northern borders,” said Ilias Akidis,
head of the police union of Didimoticho. “From what they tell us, they
are trying to cross to Turkey … because they have relatives there or
because they want to head back to their country.”
Didimoticho deputy mayor Ioannis Topaloudis said authorities have
been seeing around 20-40 people heading toward the Turkish border each
day. With a fence sealing the small section of land border, the only
option to those without the correct documentation is to take their
chances across the river. Over the years, the Evros’ current has claimed
many migrant lives.
Authorities stop those they find. Police say they have detained about
150 migrants trying to cross illegally into Turkey over the past two
months. In mid-May, police caught five Syrians aged between 23 and 52
trying to row across the river in a dinghy.
“This season the Evros (river) is very dangerous. Because of the
rains, the water level is very high,” said Akidis. “They are always
trying to go back. It is very dangerous. They don’t succeed because we
also are preventing them from crossing, but for their own reasons they
keep trying.”
Among those giving up on hopes of a life in Europe was Majd Hamed, a
21-year-old fine arts student also from Damascus. After three months in
Idomeni, he decided in mid-May to head home.
“I want to go to Syria and continue my studies in the Fine Arts
School. Even if the (European) borders open, I’m going back. I’m very
angry with the Europeans for this situation we’ve been living here,” he
said, sitting outside the train carriages where he had been sleeping in
Idomeni before the camp was evacuated.
Hamed says he sought help from U.N. agencies to return home, but was told it wasn’t possible.
“They told me that it’s not safe for me to go back to Syria,” he said. So he sought out the alternative.
Armed with a map with Didimoticho marked out, he was heading to
Thessaloniki to catch a train to the border. “From there I’m going to
cross the river, as others from Syria have told me,” he said. He aimed
to fly from Turkey to Lebanon and make his way home to Damascus.
“I never tried to cross the border with Macedonia illegally,” he
says. “I wanted to get to Germany legally, but now I’m forced to try to
return to my country in this way.”
Some lucky few do manage to take a legal route. Alia Mohamad, a
21-year-old from Aleppo, was heading with her husband and barely
2-month-old son Uday to Thessaloniki to catch a flight to Turkey with
tickets sent by her sister, who was getting married in Turkey and had
officially invited them over.
The young family had spent three months in Idomeni. “It is not
possible to continue like this and I see it is impossible to get to
Europe,” Mohamad said.
After the wedding, they aim to return to Syria.
“We have no more money, and the situation here is bad also for the
baby,” said her 23-year-old husband Mahmud Kusa Ali. “We have decided to
return to our country.”
They will settle down about 70 kilometers from their hometown of Aleppo. “It is safer there,” he said.
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