Yasser and Mahmoud, two cousins aged 12 and 10, respectively, stop at the entrance of the central mosque in Gaziantep as others hurriedly step inside for early morning prayer on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslim holy feast of sacrifice.
Wearing shabby trousers and faded shirts, Yasser and Mahmoud arrange locally produced candies and chocolates in medium sized cartons. They station themselves at two different doors of the majestic mosque to attract customers。
“I will take home my mother’s favorite sweets and some apples,” says Yasser, whose family of eight migrated from the Syrian town of Latakia 10 months ago. His father, Radwan Hassan, preferred not to live in a refugee camp set up in Gaziantep, a booming industrial city in southeastern Turkey, instead opting to live in an abandoned building with a caved-in roof。
Hassan is teaming up with a local butcher to slaughter animals and make some money. The boys don’t know where Hassan is for the Eid prayer。
Mahmoud was recently orphaned after his father was killed by a sniper in August. Hassan, Mahmoud’s uncle and Yasser’s father, brought him and his mother along with them to Turkey。
Yasser and Mahmoud briskly walk to a bakery and buy a kilogram of baklava. Carrying their bounty, the boys walk for half an hour to their impoverished neighborhood。
They enter a dilapidated, two-story building. The family sleeps in a 20-square-foot room devoid of windows. Four mattresses, one wooden bed, three chairs, and countless flies fill the humid and cold room. The toilet has neither a door nor a roof。
Hassan’s wife, Noura, has prepared adas, a typical Syrian lentil soup, and boiled rice for breakfast and lunch。
“Unlike last year, I can’t cook mansaf (meat and rice with almonds) and serve my family with ka’ek (a traditional sweet). Whatever we eat here is not charity, but my husband and sons earn it with their hard work,” she explains with pride。
Dressed in gray scarf and black abaya, she says her children have two sets of clothes and only one pair of shoes each。
Noura, who used to be a nurse in a private Latakia hospital, had never imagined that her children wouldn’t wear new clothes on Eid. Amina, her one-year-old daughter, has a cold. Her skin looks pale and dry, and she’s alarmingly underweight. The temperature here often falls below freezing。
As the infant cries for milk, Noura pours lukewarm Turkish black tea down her throat with a spoon。
“My breast milk dried, probably due to lack of good food and our testing circumstances. We can either feed the entire family or provide her formula milk,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks。
Before the family left Latakia, one of the country’s few pro-Assad cities, both had lost 16 close family members either to air raids or artillery fire。
“Prior stepping out of my home, I had laid only one condition before my husband. And he accepted: That we won’t beg for our shelter and food. We won’t live in camps, but earn our living,” Noura said。
“Forget about this Eid, we will slaughter a sheep next year as we always did,” Mahmoud said. For many Syrians, this is their second Eid-ul-Adha in a foreign land。
Indifferent to the gloom, 6-year-old Omer and 5-year-old Usman play with balloons and stuffed toys outside. Though none of the children attends school, Mahmoud’s mother Raabia teaches them basic math and Arabic handwriting。
“I keep myself busy as it helps me forget the tragedy of losing my loving husband,” Raabia said. She wondered aloud when President Obama would eliminate Bashar al-Assad for them. Mahmoud responded, “America won’t help us, mom。”
This Eid-ul-Adha, the war in Syria is even deadlier—neither of the parties announced a ceasefire, unlike in past years. At dawn, Assad’s warplanes pounded the suburbs of Damascus, and the Free Syrian Army responded with rocket fire. Other regime attacks killed three children in Hama and in the Ghouta district of Damascus. Since March 2011, more than 115,000 people have lost their lives in Syria, including about a thousand in chemical weapon attacks。
Imad al-Shami, 35, is another Syrian who defected from his government office and took a flight to Istanbul with his wife and two children more than a year ago. Unlike Gaziantep, Istanbul has little room for non-Turkish-speaking job hunters, and Shami has been unable to find work。
“I over-estimated my prospects before leaving Damascus. Istanbul is a very expensive city with cut-throat competition for jobs,” he said。
Shami’s family lives in an extra parking garage that belongs to a Turk businessman. Compared to Hassan's home, his situation is relatively secure—the family has hot and cold water and a toiled about 50 meters from the garage. Still, they are mostly dependent on handouts。
Shami recounted the horrible situation back home. “Many cities under Assad’s siege have run out of food. Local muftis have issued fatwa (religious decrees) that people can eat cats and dogs to survive,” he explained。
Owing to grim ground realities, the UN has revised its Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan, doubling its estimate for refugees to 4 million, and 6.8 million for internally displaced persons, by December。
In Yalova city, a three-hour drive from Istanbul, locals help the Shami family with food and clothes. Sometimes, he gets work on construction sites. His children get free education in a Turkish public school, even though they only speak Arabic。
Though the family continues to suffer, a Turkish real estate developer has promised him a job right after the Eid holidays. Meanwhile, he is applying for asylum in Australia and Germany, two countries where Syrians see prospects for a normal life。
As the conflict intensifies, Istanbul’s parks and uninhabited areas have attracted Syrian refugees at a faster pace. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the region’s most consistent sympathizer with the Syrian uprising. The country houses over half a million registered refugees, not including unregistered families such as Shami’s。
“The day Erdogan is not there in the government,” Shami said, “Syrians may not sleep with peace of mind。”
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古爾邦節(jié)(即穆斯林神圣的宰牲節(jié))前夕，正當人們紛紛匆忙走進加齊安泰普的中央清真寺進行清晨禱告的時候，一對年齡分別為12歲和10歲的表兄弟亞賽爾和穆罕默德卻在門口停了下來。
他們穿著破爛的褲子和褪色的襯衫，整理著幾盒當?shù)厣a(chǎn)的糖果和巧克力。他們分別站在莊嚴的清真寺大門的兩邊，希望能夠吸引來顧客。
亞賽爾說：“我回家時會給媽媽帶些她最喜歡吃的甜食和蘋果。”亞賽爾一家八口十個月前剛從敘利亞拉塔基亞市的一個小鎮(zhèn)搬到這里。他的父親拉德萬•哈桑不想住進加齊安泰普(土耳其東南部一個新興的工業(yè)城市)當?shù)卦O立的難民營，于是選擇在一棟屋頂塌方的廢棄大樓里安頓了下來。
哈桑靠和當?shù)匾粋�屠夫合伙屠宰動物來掙些錢。他的兒子亞賽爾根本不知道宰牲節(jié)禱告時他在哪里。
穆罕默德的父親八月份被一名阻擊兵殺害，穆罕默德成了沒有父親的孤兒。他的叔叔哈桑(即亞賽爾的父親)一家搬到土耳其的時候便把他和他的母親一起帶了過來。
亞賽爾和穆罕默德迅速跑到一家面包店，買了一公斤果仁蜜餅。他們抱著果仁蜜餅猶如抱著獎賞，走了半個小時才到達他們貧窮破爛的小區(qū)。
他們走進一棟荒廢的二層小樓。全家人都睡在一間20平方英尺的房間里，里面還沒有窗戶。房間里潮濕陰冷，只有四張床墊、一張木床和數(shù)不盡的蒼蠅。廁所既沒有門，也沒有頂。
哈桑的妻子諾拉已經(jīng)做好了adas(一種敘利亞常見的的扁豆湯)，煮了米飯。這就是一家人的早餐和午餐。
她充滿自豪的說道：“今年和去年不一樣，我做不了手抓飯(在杏仁米飯里加入肉)，也不能給家人做ka’ek(敘利亞一種傳統(tǒng)甜食)。但是所有我們吃的東西沒有一樣是別人救濟的，全都是我的丈夫和孩子們辛苦工作賺來的。”
諾拉頭戴灰色頭巾，身穿一件黑色長袍。她說她的孩子每個人只有兩套衣服和一雙鞋子。
諾拉曾經(jīng)是拉塔基亞一家私人醫(yī)院的護士。她說自己之前從來沒有想到孩子們會在宰牲節(jié)當天沒有新衣服穿。她一歲的女兒阿米拉得了感冒，皮膚看起來即蒼白又干燥，體型嚴重偏瘦。當?shù)氐臏囟冉?jīng)常會降到零度以下。
嬰兒哭的時候，諾拉就用湯匙往她的嘴里送一勺溫熱的土耳其紅茶。諾拉說：“可能是因為食物中的營養(yǎng)不夠，加上環(huán)境也差，我已經(jīng)沒有奶水了。如果喂孩子配方奶粉的話一家人就得挨餓。”講著講著諾拉的眼淚便流了下來。
拉塔基亞是敘利亞支持阿薩德的少數(shù)幾個城市之一。在哈桑和諾拉一家離開拉塔基亞之前，他們兩人各有16位近親屬喪生，不是因空襲死亡就是因炮轟死亡。
諾拉說：“在離開拉塔基亞的家之前，我只對我丈夫提了一個條件。而他也接受了。這個條件就是我們不乞求別人施舍住所和食物。我們也不住在難民營，要自己養(yǎng)活自己。”
穆罕默德說：“還是忘記今年這個古爾邦節(jié)吧，明年的古爾邦節(jié)我們就能像過去那樣宰頭羊了。對很多敘利亞人來說，這是他們在異國他鄉(xiāng)過的第二個古爾邦節(jié)。
六歲的歐米爾和五歲的烏斯曼絲毫不理會家里的陰郁氣氛。他們在外面玩氣球和毛絨玩具。家里的孩子都沒有上學，不過穆罕默德的母親瑞比亞教他們一些基本的數(shù)學運算和阿拉伯語言書寫。
瑞比亞說：“我讓自己忙起來，這樣我就能忘掉失去我愛人的痛苦。”瑞比亞大聲發(fā)問，美國總統(tǒng)奧巴馬什么時候才為敘利亞人民消滅巴沙爾•阿薩德政權。穆罕默德則回答到：“媽媽，美國才不會幫我們呢。”
今年的古爾邦節(jié)當天，敘利亞國內(nèi)的戰(zhàn)爭進一步惡化——與往年不同，戰(zhàn)爭雙方都沒有宣布�；�。黎明時，阿薩德一方的戰(zhàn)斗機搗毀了大馬士革的郊區(qū)，而敘利亞自由軍也以火箭炮予以回擊。其他的政權襲擊造成哈馬市和大馬士革Ghouta區(qū)的三名兒童遇害。自2011年3月以來，敘利亞有超過11.5萬人民喪生，其中有大約1000人死于化學武器襲擊。
另一位35歲的敘利亞人伊馬德•沙米，一年多前背離了政府機構，和妻子還有兩個孩子坐飛機來到了伊斯坦布爾。和加齊安泰普不同的是，不會講土耳其語的人在伊斯坦布爾很難找到工作。沙米就一直沒找到工作。
他講到：“離開大馬士革之前，我高估了我的發(fā)展前景。伊斯坦布爾消費很高，而找工作的競爭也很殘酷。”
沙米一家住在一個土耳其商人的寬敞的停車庫里。和哈桑的家相比，沙米的情況就相對有保障的多了——家里有熱水和冷水，距車庫50米左右處就有一個廁所。盡管如此，他們大多數(shù)情況下還是靠救濟品生活。
沙米重新估量了回敘利亞后面臨的可怕情況。他表示：“由于阿薩德的襲擊，許多城市的食物都吃光了。當?shù)氐哪路蛱犷C布了伊斯蘭教令，允許人們吃貓狗來充饑。”
鑒于敘利亞嚴峻的現(xiàn)實形勢，聯(lián)合國修訂了其對敘利亞的人道主義援助應急計劃。截止到10月份，對難民數(shù)量的評估比之前增加了一倍，達到了400萬，國內(nèi)流離失所人員則達到680萬。
在距伊斯坦布爾三個小時車程的亞洛瓦市，當?shù)厝藭䦷兔o沙米一家一些食物和衣服。有時候，沙米還可以在建筑工地上找到活兒干。雖然只能說阿拉伯語，他的兩個孩子仍然得到了土耳其一家公立學校提供的接受免費教育的機會。
目前沙米一家的生活依然很苦。不過一個土耳其房地產(chǎn)開發(fā)商已經(jīng)許諾在古爾邦節(jié)假期過后給沙米一份工作。同時，沙米正在申請去澳大利亞或德國避難。敘利亞人認為他們可以在這兩個國家過上正常的生活。
隨著敘利亞沖突的加劇，伊斯坦布爾的公園和無人居住的地區(qū)吸收敘利亞難民的速度越來越快。土耳其總理埃爾多安是這一地區(qū)始終對敘利亞叛亂表示最大同情的領導人。土耳其政府已經(jīng)為50多萬登記過的敘利亞難民提供了住所，其中還不包括像沙米一家這樣的未登記的家庭。
沙米說：“哪一天埃爾多安不當總理了，敘利亞人可能也就無法再睡安穩(wěn)覺了。”
