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Syrian Refugees

On a Trickle of Midnight Electricity, Syria’s Refugees See Home Receding

From 7iber

In a blaze of publicity, the Jordanian government and the UN announced last summer that the largest camp for refugees of Syria’s civil war would at last get legal electricity to replace its dangerous hodgepodge of illicit hookups. But in the precarious life of a refugee camp, even apparent improvements have their pitfalls, writes Dana Jebril.

“A grandmother will no longer tell stories to her grand children in the dark and children can now study in the evenings..."

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Resettle in France? ‘Non, Merci’ Say Refugees

From Arret Sur Image

On TV news, refugees are grateful and passive recipients of the noble generosity of European countries who offer them sanctuary. This essay from Arret Sur Image is a reminder that international migrants make their own rational decisions about where they want to go:

What a welcome! What enthusiasm! In the wake of a German announcement that they would take in 800,000 refugees, France has committed to taking in…24,000.

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Vigilante Patrols and Curfews Greet Syrians in Lebanon

Bread distribution for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon. Photo CC.

From The Daily Star

Beirut’s Daily Star reports on the backlash against the arrival of Syrian refugees in part of Lebanon. Curfews, anti-refugee ‘night watches’ and beatings.

With approximately 5,000 Syrian refugee families now in the area, Aley's villagers have grown uneasy - so uneasy that municipally enforced curfews on Syrian citizens have in some places been deemed insufficient to ensure security, and townspeople are forming their own patrols.

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Egypt: Exploitive Marriages to Syrian Refugees

From Al Hayat

The fear that local men would exploit refugee women by ‘marrying’ them has raised the hackles of women’s groups in several Arab countries. Citing staggering marriage figures-of uncertain provenance-Egyptian women’s groups hope to force Cairo to intervene.

Describing it as human trafficking, the Egyptian National Council for Women has said there were 12,000 cases of marriage between Syrian refugee women and Egyptian men in one year alone.

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