Forgotten people face social and
psychological problems during years of
waiting to be resettled in other
countries –- and they are the lucky ones
MICHAEL KUSER
ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News
Iraqi refugees live in Turkey for
years while waiting to be resettled in
other countries, yet they have no right
to work and suffer social and
psychological problems from being forced
to live where the Turkish government
directs them, often without community
support.
"Any door they knock on is closed
in their faces," said Monsignor Francois
Yakan, 48, who runs the Chaldean
Catholic Church in Turkey from his
office in Istanbul. "The former regime
in Iraq was no good, but this situation
is worse, and every day we learn of five
or six people who have been killed in
Iraq, relatives of the families in our
Istanbul community."
The monsignor was born in Hakkari
and later went to school and seminary in
France, returning to Turkey seven years
ago as Chaldean patriarchal vicar. He
ministers to his scattered flock from an
office in Istanbul, where he also
conducts masses at a small church,
formerly Byzantine Catholic, opposite
the British Consulate. The Chaldeans
also worship at a larger chapel in the
cellar of Saint Antoine Church on
Istiklal Caddesi.
“These refugees have social and
psychological problems,” said Yakan.
“They stay here from one to 11 years
with no health care, no work permit and
practically no schooling. The Europeans
don't pay any attention to these people,
yet they talk about human rights and
being Christian.”
Numbers
game:
The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which
acts as the Turkish government's agent
regarding refugees and asylum seekers,
estimates that up to one million Iraqis
have fled the war in Iraq.
While most of Iraqi refugees live
in neighboring Syria and Jordan, those
who come to Turkey are required by law
to register with the police within 10
days of their arrival and also to apply
to the UNHCR for a so-called refugee
status determination. Up to that hearing
they are asylum seekers, while those who
do not register or apply are
undocumented immigrants.
Unfortunately, since the war began
in 2003 the UNHCR has suspended normal
processing of Iraqi asylum seekers.
Gaining the right to be resettled in a
third country was not too easy before
then, but now it is practically
impossible except in the most vulnerable
cases, or in rare cases where
humanitarian programs in countries such
as the United States, Canada and
Australia allow Iraqis to be reunited
with family members in those countries.
The Turkish Ministry of Interior
estimates that some 90,000 people
entered Turkey illegally last year, but
it does not break down those figures by
nationality. Through mid-September this
year, 407 Iraqis in Turkey applied to
the UNHCR for asylum.
“We get applicants in all
categories, but we don't break them down
by religion,” said Metin Corabatir,
UNHCR spokesman in Ankara. Thus no one
knows how many Iraqis enter Turkey
without permission, or what percentage
of them is Christian and what percentage
Muslim.
Community
support:
The most visible Iraqi refugees in
Istanbul are the Christians, mainly
Chaldean Catholics. Like other refugees,
asylum seekers and undocumented
immigrants, they have been uprooted from
their homes and must make do in a
strange land. Those who must live
outside Istanbul must live without the
communal support that is central to a
person's welfare.
The Vatican's relief agency Caritas
runs a few social support programs and
also helps support a school for Iraqi
children here in Istanbul, next door to
its office in Harbiye.
"We focus on Iraqi asylum seekers
who knock on our door," said Caritas
spokeswoman Tülin Türkcan. "It's a very
small operation and we're limited by our
capacity. I can talk about Assyrians and
Chaldeans, for they're the Christian
Iraqis who come to us, not the Kurds or
Turkmen. Sometimes individual Africans
come for clothes or one-time medical
care. Ignorance is a problem, for a
Bangladeshi usually doesn't know what
asylum is, so it's a big issue to talk
about."
Pope John Paul II in 1991 ordered
the Caritas office in Istanbul set up to
coordinate aid for the half-million
Iraqi refugees who had fled across the
Turkish border to escape the Persian
Gulf War.
“Caritas only knows of the 500
people they've registered,” said Yakan.
“We had 3,800 people here as of last
month. As the war in Iraq intensifies,
the numbers here go up...”
Neediest
cases:
Caritas has no official status, but
the organization Yakan set up six months
ago -- the Chaldean-Assyrian Refugee Aid
Association -- has the legal identity
needed to support the community of Iraqi
Christian refugees. Yakan receives no
money from either the Turkish government
or the Vatican.
“What we do need is a state agency
responsible for the refugee community in
Istanbul, [whether they are] Christian,
Muslim [or] Buddhist -- whatever faith,”
said Yakan. “I make pastoral visits to
Konya, Kayseri, Burdur, Isparta --
wherever the people are sent -- but
there's only me in all of Turkey.
Through the church foundation we help
widows and other people in truly dire
straits, but as for going back to Iraq,
that's simply impossible.”
The Christians have no district or
region of their own in Iraq, as do
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish people, he
said. Many of these people left a bad
situation years ago and would return to
find other people living in their
houses, other people tending their
orchards.
“If each of the 25 countries in the
European Union would take 10 families --
voila -- the problem would be solved and
we wouldn't have any Iraqi Christian
refugees left,” said Yakan. “If 10 is
too much, they can take five -- that
would help.”
In Turkey there is much pain
because the U.N. says go to Isparta, or
Kastamonu, places where no one speaks
Arabic, where there are no Christians,
according to Monsignor Yusuf Sağ, 68,
patriarchal vicar of the Syrian Catholic
Church in Turkey.
“One woman told me that she had to
imitate a chicken laying an egg in order
to get one,” said Sağ. “In Burdur, for
example, I bet you could not find even
one person who speaks Arabic and
certainly not Asuri. It's hard enough on
a single man, but imagine having a
family.” Asuri is a modern variant of
Aramaic, the same language spoken by
Jesus Christ.
Open arms:
Sağ has 174 families in his
congregation at the Sacred Heart Church
in Gumussuyu, all Turkish citizens, but
refugees from Iraq and other
Arabic-speaking countries come to him
because he speaks their language. A
native of Mardin, Sağ speaks fluent
Arabic.
“Muslim Iraqis come to me, too, and
I treat them, also Somalis, Sudanese and
Palestinians,” he said. “Three Egyptians
came here just last week, for example. I
know their troubles and we do our best
to help with clothing in winter, basic
food such as cooking oil, rice and
beans, but it's not enough. Some of
these families have been here for six
years, even nine years.”
Forget religion, it's a matter of
human rights, according to Monsignor Sağ.
“And the children do not get
schooling, though they do here in
Istanbul, from Caritas,” he said. “I
thank the United States and the U.N.,
but Iraqi refugees in Turkey have much
more pain than they do in Jordan and
Syria, where at least they speak the
language, and they have more churches.
Here they don't send them to Mardin,
which would be logical, they send them
to places like Isparta and Burdur.”
The churches send the Iraqi women
out to clean houses in Istanbul for 50
lira a day, maybe 100 if someone is
feeling generous, but it is very
difficult to live here without any right
to work.
“What is the Turkish government
thinking? These people are humans in
pain and suffering,” said the monsignor.
“The children get into trouble, into
heroin or gangs. We don't want anything
for ourselves, but these people need
help. I tell them to keep asking God.
Maybe they get fed up, but He will
provide. We talk of faith, Jesus, the
Bible, but humans have limits to their
faith. Not everyone is capable of the
faith of Job, and even he had doubts.”
To let these people stay in
Istanbul would be a big service,
according to all the people interviewed.
Here they can have a community, get aid
from the church, see doctors. Thus
Monsignor Sağ cries the opposite of
Moses: Let my people stay!
“I want this not as a priest or
father figure, but as a fellow human
being,” he said. “And I don't want money
from the state, but here these refugees
can learn Arabic and English, while
outside Istanbul there is no emotional
and material support. These are the
tenets of Islam, but they just say it,
in fact the Turkish government doesn't
differentiate between Christian and
Muslim refugees, they both get the same
bad and inhumane treatment. We can only
do so much, and it's a human tragedy.”
From Daniel Chukri
