Reyhanli: the Turkish border town changed forever by Syria’s war

On the walls around Reyhanli, Arabic and Turkish scrawlings layer over each other like the tangled conversations in local tea shops. ‘You are mine’, one scribble of black graffiti says, with another striking across it to state ‘love is a lie’, what at once together and divided - just like the town itself.

This Turkish border town is the key crossing to and from Syria’s besieged province of Idlib, where at least 900,000 people have already been displaced by a brutal regime offensive since December. In Turkey’s southernmost province, it is a location whose sovereignty has been disputed, although peacefully, for many years.

Many here already spoke Arabic as their mother tongue, but nine years of civil war over the border has forced at least 3.5 million Syrians to flee to Turkey, leaving Reyhanli arguably more Arab than Turk.

The neighborhood restaurants offer falafel instead of kokorec. Women walk their children to school with their faces veiled under a niqab, something rarely seen elsewhere in Turkey. Yet every building and shop front flies the crimson Turkish flag in honour of the spilled blood of the country’s 36 ‘martyrs’, soldiers killed by Syrian air and artillery strikes in Idlib last week, which also left more than 30 troops wounded.

Escalating tensions over the deaths just several kilometres over the border from Reyhanli culminated on Sunday when Ankara launched Operation Spring Shield against the Syrian Arab Army. Turkey downed two Syrian jets - accompanied by a third on Tuesday - and destroyed several air defence systems in military action bound to continue at least until a gathering between Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin - an integral ally to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad - scheduled for March 5.

Turkey has in recent weeks needed international assist with help end a regime offensive to reclaim territory in Syria’s last rebel-held stronghold which has infringed on a de-escalation zone agreed in Sochi with Russia in 2018. But nobody has answered, despite almost a million persons being displaced to overstretched camps and makeshift settlements along the border since December, a predicament aid groups have called the biggest humanitarian disaster of the 21st century.

With space in non-regime areas now at a premium, most are forced to live several families to a tent, or out on view, exposed to the elements. Around 80 % of the displaced are women and children, having fled for the next, third and even seventh time.

Speaking over the phone from Idlib, Ahmed, a media assistant at relief organisation the Syrian American Medical Society, who did want to use his real name, said 97 hospitals and clinics have been destroyed since November as a result of regime’s advance, and that the cold had killed at least five children.

“The humanitarian situation is a catastrophe,” he said. “Folks are worried they have to flee even the camps they have already fled to.

“They don’t really know what is going on today, or tomorrow, so I hope that Turkey will minimize the advancement of the regime and the wave of displacement for the reason that living conditions are miserable.”

This week, fortune is a little kinder and sunlight is shining, offering much-needed rest from the biting cold of previous weeks when temperatures have dropped to practically zero degrees celsius. A clear day makes for a cold evening, though, and the thin walls of a tent offer little warmth or comfort.

The Cilvegozu border gate separates the thousands seeking refuge from the carnage in Idlib from those sipping tea in Reyhanli’s cafes by simply a few kilometres. The dividing wall snakes across basil-coloured hills that are dotted with grazing sheep in all shades of coffee, the calm belying the tragedies taking place a brief distance away.

Abdel Jaleed leans against a concrete road barrier on the Turkish side as a convoy of US 4x4s is spat right out of the gate marking the finish of the no man’s land between your two countries. He's struggling to control the wide smile that lights up his face as he waits for an automobile alongside his wife and two small children.

He has not seen them for eight months, since he was brought to a hospital in Turkey in a critical condition after being caught in a regime airstrike that cost him his left leg.

Although few can now cross from Syria into Turkey, they are some of the lucky ones. Now bound to a life on crutches, Mr Jaleed managed to navigate an intensely bureaucratic system of paperwork to get the necessary documents to bring his loved types to him.

“Thank god I finally saw them,” he said.

Now the family can start again, from almost ten years of war, nevertheless they face the challenge of a fresh life in a foreign country that's increasingly less welcoming as its economy stutters.

“We are harassed by Turks,” said Ababdu, 42, who works in a Reyhanli restaurant. He has lived there since fleeing Idlib’s Jebel Al Zaweey along with his wife and children in 2013. Thinking he was just weathering the storm, he previously expected to be back home within three months.

His desperation had led him to consider attempting the perilous journey to reach Europe.

“They don’t accept that people fled Syria as a result of the war and that people can’t change that. Especially the teenagers - if he includes a problem with his wife, he involves disturb Syrians.”

Days before Turkey’s fourth incursion into Syria, President Erdoğan announced that he was opening the country’s borders with Europe to permit refugees passage to Greece, part of the European Union. through land and sea. Thousands have since amassed on the border with no shelter, food or water, clashing with Greek police. Critics say Turkey has generated another humanitarian disaster so that it can put pressure on Europe for political gain.

“It’s all for political interest,” said Ababdu.

“We come to mind that if more Turkish troops are killed that we will be targeted. That’s why persons are rushing to Europe. No-one would like to live in this country unless they have to - we aren't safe.”

But despite friction between your two communities in Turkey, the united states has been hailed as a saviour in Syria, with persons celebrating significant gains against the regime.

A stone’s throw over the unimposing border in the Syrian city of Haram, Yousouf, 21, who asked never to use his real name for concern with reprisal, said over the telephone that since the regime turned its sights on Idlib, all people can do is try to survive.

He said the recent wave of displacement has forced landlords in the area to put up their rents. From Ayn Al Arab, west of Aleppo, he has been displaced multiple times and today shares a cramped three-room apartment along with his wife, two children, and seven other family. They pay $100 a month, but only one member of the family is working.

“Nearer the border charges for goods are also higher, such as water and food. Many persons have lost their houses and jobs, I really wonder how they are able to afford these costs.”

But persons feel safer since Turkey commenced its operation, says Yousouf, with their troops on the streets and drones in the sky. Actually, he feels encouraged to come back to his home and help in your time and effort to push Syrian regime troops back.

“We don’t want the international community to think of what's happening as a humanitarian disaster. No. We are resisting Assad.” he said.

“We are living such as this because we don’t want to live under regime control - we are showing the world that people choose tents and camps over that.”