The Story of Ahmed and Alin: Syrian Orphans Trapped in Turkey – part 1

Written on July 16th, 2016 in politics Comments Off

… the Child Laborers from Syria – Published on Spiegel Online International, by Claas Relotius, July 14, 2016 (Photo Gallery).

Ahmed and Alin were 10 and 11 years old when their parents died in Aleppo. They fled to Turkey and now work there as child laborers — collecting scrap and working in a sweat shop. They dream of escape, but don’t know how … //

… The day when war arrived was a summer’s day two years ago. Ahmed and Alin, the children of a laundry service owner in Aleppo, were 10 and 11 years old. He, a boy with big ears who liked to eat licorice and preferred riding a bicycle and playing football to praying. She, a girl who liked doing homework, had the best grades in her class and who had been taught by her mother, a baker, how to cook.

They had just sat down to dinner. Their mother Adeeba had made couscous with dates. Mohammed, their father, had been telling them about his work. A Syrian family sitting together at a table — when an explosion, out of nowhere, knocked all four off their chairs. The bomb, which had fallen on the neighboring building, tore through three walls, leaving their living room in rubble. The children screamed and their father called for help. The only person silent was their mother, who was buried beneath the stones. “She was just lying there,” says Ahmed, no longer breathing. And when the smoke and dust finally cleared, they could see blood flowing from her forehead. In Alin’s words, it looked “like red water in a river.”

Our Uncle Told Us to Leave:

An aunt washed the corpse. Ahmed and his father buried his mother at the last remaining cemetery in Aleppo, located not far away from their destroyed home.

They moved in with an uncle. Not long after losing his wife, their father Mohammed also lost his business. Even though bomb after bomb fell on their neighborhood, he didn’t want to leave Aleppo. Alin and Ahmed say he cursed Assad and the dictator’s soldiers, who had encircled half the city. The children were not allowed to leave the house — at first for weeks, and then for months. During the day, they could see smoke rising above the homes of their friends. At night, they laid in bed together with their father, clinging tightly to him each time an explosion shook the walls.

It was on a hot morning one year ago, both say, that their father left the house never to return. He had wanted to pick up food for them — pita bread, flour and a canister of water. The last remaining store in their neighborhood was located just four blocks away, but snipers lurked everywhere on the rooftops, as neighbors would later tell them. A regime solder, claimed some, had shot their father in the back of the head. Others were sure it was Islamic State fighters. Alin and Ahmed say they never saw their father again.

They have a hard time talking about it even today. When they do, their soft features become rigid and their eyes begin to wander. They don’t have many memories of their last days and weeks in Aleppo — only that, at some point, perhaps months later, they left the city. “Our uncle told us we had to leave,” Ahmed says. “He stayed,” says Alin, “but we were to disappear” … //

… (full text).

Part 2: Separation;
Part 3: Searching for a Happy Ending.

Links:

France, BESANÇON: entretien avec Didier Gendraud, en retrait de la politique, mais attentif, dans Ma Commune.info, le 14 juillet 2016;

Revival of Universal Basic Income Proposal Ignores Needs of Labor Force, on WSJ, by Greg Ip, July 13, 2016: No-strings-attached benefit could worsen the problem of falling participation rate of prime-age men; (my comment: why not introduce, linked to BIG, an obligatory service of xy hours/year, to be given by every one at a time noted in advance … and do not tell me that it is impossible to be organised, with all our supercomputers, super programs and human genies. The only BUG: this can be misused by elites to big work for us all with small income … at the end we are dependent for our daily rice bowl. Universal Basic Income makes only sense with a 100% democratic and transparent financial system – Heidi);

INDIA: Gains from sale of inherited property taxed as capital gains, on live mint, by Parizad Sirwalla, July 13, 2016: for computing capital gains in case of such inherited property, the period of holding is reckoned from the date of purchase of property by the owner who actually acquired it, other than by inheritance or gift;

Universal basic income: poor tool to fight poverty? Mapping the debate, on BIEN, by Kate Farland, July 13, 2016;

Revenu de base, un futur droit fondamental? dans La Dépeche.fr, le 13 juillet 2016;

Yugoslavia 1991: How Can a War Start If Nobody Wants It? on Spiegel Online International, by Carolyn Braun, Marcus Pfeil and Danijel Visevic, July 4, 2016 (Photo Gallery): Twenty-five years ago, Yugoslavia’s best-known musicians gave a concert in Sarajevo. Those in attendance were sure of one thing: There should not and would not be a war. Then all hell broke loose. A new project is looking for people who were at the show;

The Dynasty of Rothschild, the only Trillionaires in the World, 55.50 min, uploaded by Sish Advexon;

Rothschild’s Tactical Retreat – Brexit, 6.01 min, uploaded by Counter Tyranny Ops;

Les guerres inutiles pour le pétrole, dans Global Relay Network, par WILL SUMMER, le 7 mai 2016;

A quoi ça sert de boire du lait? à rien, 4.08 min, dans facebook/lenouvelobservateur, April 1, 2016;

… and this:

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