“I can’t stop crying. My eyes are just tears. I’m looking and looking for a future. The years in Sweden – the years back in Kabul. Now again on the run.” The words belong to Mohammad. In fluent Swedish, he writes about his feelings as a migrant from Afghanistan since his asylum application was rejected. I meet him at the dormitory he rents on the Asian side of Istanbul. The room smells of damp and mould. On the light blue walls hang acrylic pictures that the 29-year-old has painted. Of Gamla Stan in Stockholm, sheep and red cottages. MISSING: Mohammad talks to his girlfriend in Afghanistan almost every day. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news He sells them to supporters in Sweden, he is told. It gives him some income, because he is not allowed to work in Turkey even though he has been allowed to stay for another year. In the next room, two mattresses lie on the floor and bear witness to the other young Afghans who live here. They are just waiting for the next opportunity to be smuggled across the border into Greece like their brother was. He lives in Sweden. Mohammed will also try again. GAMLA STAN: Gamla Stan is one of many pictures Mohammad has sold. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news Blogs about the escape Mohammad was one of over a million refugees and migrants who flocked to Europe in 2015. He went by rubber boat to Greece, walked across the border to Macedonia, took a train on to Serbia and north through Germany and Denmark. Finally he came to Malmö in Sweden. 162,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden that year. Five times more than in Norway. But Mohammad was not allowed to stay. Four years later he was sent to Kabul. And left there again when the Taliban took over last year. And he has blogged about life on the run. “The first question from the smuggler is how many members are there in the family? When I answer four he says it will cost $1,300 per person to take them to Turkey from Afghanistan. It’s a friend award. He says he can guarantee the family will come forward. Only I pay. He sounds so confident that it’s like talking to a travel agency that books tickets with a stopover and asks if we have any wishes about the food.” WAITING: Mohammad shares a dormitory apartment with two other Afghans, who also want to go to Europe. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news Environmental workers in Istanbul One of the first things I noticed when I came to Istanbul as a correspondent this summer were all the Afghans. They were very visible in the street scene. Many have found a livelihood that consists of digging in the rubbish for cardboard and plastic to sell at recycling stations. With large bags on wheels, it can be up to 100 kilos in a day and a small change of money. The illegal Afghans, together with Turkish Kurds and Roma, have a monopoly on waste sorting in the big city. ENVIRONMENTAL WORKERS: Waste sorting in Istanbul’s streets provides income for some of the migrants. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news But after extensive police raids, there are fewer of them right now. Many thousands have been sent back to Kabul or are waiting in large deportation centers. They are not wanted here in Turkey, which has more than enough with the 3.6 million Syrians living here. With an estimated 400,000 Afghans on top of that, virtually all of them illegal, Turkey has the world’s highest number of refugees and migrants. That record is not least due to the agreement the country entered into with the EU in November 2015. PULLS HEAVY: The bags can weigh over 100 kilos in one day. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news The EU agreement turned everything around I myself covered the summit in Brussels when an eager EU president Donald Tusk announced that an agreement was in the works. Until then, people had been afraid that the entire passport-free Schengen cooperation would collapse. For 20 years after it became passport-free, several European countries had introduced border controls again due to the flow of refugees. Earlier that autumn, I had stood at the water’s edge at sunrise and watched one inflatable boat after another come across the strait from Turkey to Lesvos in Greece. A 9–10-year-old boy jumped into the water before the inflatable reached land, his face breaking into a smile. A mother sat down with the child in her lap and cried with joy. RELIEF: A Syrian boy smiles happily at coming ashore in autumn 2015. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news Two little sisters carefully went back into the water with clothes and shoes on to find out if the sea was really as dangerous as the adults wanted have it. They were not the first to arrive. On the beach lay a mountain of life jackets and inflatable boats, and between the stones torn to pieces Afghan passports. SØPPELBERG: Life jackets and rubber boats on Lesvos in the autumn of 2015. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news A Turkish coast guard ship docked a few kilometers off the coast. It didn’t seem to be their responsibility. But towards the end of the year, Turkey agreed to run more border controls in return for lots of money from the EU and a promise that the Turks would be granted visa freedom. Just the last one never came to fruition. EU President Tusk believed the agreement was not to add a stone to the burden on Turkey, which was already housing more than 2 million Syrian refugees. This was a mutual agreement. DESTROYING PASSPORTS: One of many Afghan passports lying on the shore in autumn 2015. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news Unpopular in Turkey But there has been a lot of water between Greece and Turkey since 2015. The Turkish economy is ailing and the refugees are becoming less and less popular. Syrians are blamed for pressure on wages, rising rents and unemployment. Many Turks also express a fear that the large Arab immigration will change Turkish culture in the long term. One of them is the student Bekir Taskomur. He stands fishing along the banks of the Bosphorus with his cap backwards. He says that Turkish women are increasingly harassed by Arabs, both Afghans and Syrians. – Social media is full of such stories, he says. Although it does not affect him directly, he believes it is a challenge for society. – If there were a hundred thousand Syrians here it would have gone well, but now there are far too many, he believes. FEAR CULTURE: Bekir Taskomur fears that Turkey will change in a more Islamic direction because of all the refugees and migrants. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news At a café, barista Anil Koca serves me a steaming hot cup of cappuccino. He says that he has to compete for the job with underpaid Syrians. Now he wants to travel from Turkey to France, because it has become impossible to live on his salary here. The 67-year-old who sells simit bread from a stall along the harbor also believes the Syrians are to blame for his son not getting a job. LABOR REFUGEE: Anil Koca believes the Syrians are pushing down his wages, and plans to travel to Paris to work there. Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news – But it is wrong to bully them for that, because they are also people, he says. The Syrians themselves find themselves in a legal no-man’s land. In Turkey, only European citizens can apply for asylum and receive refugee status. They are here as guests, but have no home to return to. Not part of the world Although Turkey has gone from being a transit country to a country where flight stops due to extensive border controls on both sides, it has not crushed the dream of Europe. Mohammad cannot let go of the hope of one day creating a future in a country other than Afghanistan. Here in Turkey, he doesn’t believe in any future either. But before he travels further, he will go to Afghanistan, marry his girlfriend and try to smuggle her along. I ask how realistic it is that he will be believed to need protection next time. – I am being threatened because of my blog, and have no other choice but to leave, he says and adds. – You live in a good world that I am not allowed to take part in. What would you do if you were in my shoes? Mohammad has put it into words in his blog. “In the past week, a thought has grown that I am not part of this world. Nobody wants me here on earth. If I had been a criminal I could understand that the authorities are after me, but I am not. I’m basically a pretty positive person. People I know describe me as kind. So why does it have to be this way? Why don’t I have a country where I can live and feel at home?” Photo: Åse Marit Befring / news
ttn-69
Selling photos of Gamla Stan to survive in Turkey – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
