Auteur: dimitrisvetsikas1969. Pixabay Licence.

80 million forcibly displaced people by the end of 2019

La version française de cet article intitulée « 80 millions de cicatrices sur la conscience de l’humanité » est parue dans Voix d’Exils le 3 mars 2020

Wars are provoked, countries are divided and refugees are flooding the world, while terrible images are displayed every day on television screens of migrants drowning in rough seas, dying of exhaustion or starvation, killed by mercenaries, exploited by human traffickers and transformed into merchandise and currency. They are victims of political machinations and « regime change », in other words, man-made misfortunes!

According to the estimates of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), at the end of 2019, an unprecedented number of 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide and delivered to stormy seas, to the burning desert sun and to the whims of the immigration offices of host countries.

Children are the most vulnerable

Children are the most vulnerable among refugees. They are infected with widespread diseases, recruited as child soldiers in armed conflicts and are victims of rape and forced labor.

The other day, as I was scrolling through my Facebook page I came across this piece of news: “Fatima Ibrahim Hadi, aged 12, died of malnutrition on February 4 of this year, after her photos invaded international media as living proof of the ugliness of the war on Yemen and of the crimes committed by the warring parties and their patrons”. In Yemen, an estimated 3.2 million children and women suffer from acute malnutrition and 7,4 million children need humanitarian assistance (ICRC). Then, continuing to scroll down my page, I found this obituary: « The al-Ghai family is devastated by the loss of four family members who perished while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. Four other members of the same family were saved. Many others have drowned. Most of them were from Hasakeh governorate of Syria ” located in the northeast of the country.

Weaponizing refugees

In October 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Syrian Sunni Islamist allies launched a full-scale military offensive in this very region of Hasakeh. The incursion has triggered the displacement of 200,000 to 300,000 people overnight in the towns and villages of Ras al-Ain, Tal Tamer and Tal Abiad, and caused widespread devastation and pillage.
Turkish President Erdogan, whose country has been deeply involved in the war in Syria, and who opened his country’s borders to Syrian refugees at the start of the conflict, is now using them as bargaining chips with the European Union, and his latest attempt to pushing them to the Greco-Turkish border demonstrates his lack of concern for their well-being.
Moreover, the policy of weaponising Syrian refugees and recruiting them in Turkey’s proxy wars in Lybia and elsewhere continues full-scale. The Guardian’s correspondent writes the following from Ankara on 26 may 2020: In Lybia “an estimated 8’000 to10’000” Syrian mercenaries are fighting as “part of Ankara’s plan for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean” (1). This blatant violation of all international conventions is another clear example of how Turkey is mistreating and manipulating an extremely vulnerable population.

Refugees die twice

Someone has said that these poor refugees die twice: once when their natural habitats is destroyed and they are bombed outside their countries. And a second time, when they struggle along the arduous roads in their quest to reach the host countries!
On an official mission for the United Nations, Jean Ziegler, a sociologist from Geneva, made a research tour in May 2019 to Lesbos, one of five refugee reception centers on Greek’s Aegean Islands. And in his recently published book « Lesbos, la honte de l’Europe », he describes how 20’000 refugees are crammed there in totally inhuman conditions, in a flagrant violation of the most basic principles of human rights! These conditions, he says, are « Set by the European Union for one purpose: to create terror and deterrence in order to prevent the arrival of other refugees »

Mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies

Being well aware of the nature of politics, there will be no end to these man-made disasters in the future. The UN, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people of good will do not have the appropriate leverage to end this situation. The mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies. Meanwhile, the powerful countries that have been involved in these disasters do care only about how to « divide the cake » in countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and many others which have become failing states unable to protect their citizens.

Have human values and ethics become empty slogans?

If humanity had lived by certain human principles and values, most of these displaced people would have stayed at home, enjoying a dignified and secure life, even though they had to tolerate difficulties and poverty.

Hayro
Member of the Vaud editorial board of  Voix d’Exils

References:
(1) Turkey and The Weaponizing of Syrian Refugees.

Une fillette blessée lors d’un bombardement à Damas le 26.10.2012. Galerie de FreeDomhouse. (CC BY 2.0)

When will this massacre in Syria stop? When will justice finally take place? These questions are essential to answer in the Syrian case as quickly as possible. After more than two years of planned and intentional massacres, every conscious being in the world should feel this real tragedy, and speak up to demand the end of the killing of Syrians now.

In fact, the Syrians are not insects or animals. They are a live nation, and have a great history of prosperity, urbanization and freedom. Naturally, influenced by the butterfly effect of the arabic spring, the Syrian people dared to break the wall of silence, and they went out to ask only for their humanity back, after decades of oppression and humiliation. They demonstrated unarmed for more than one year, accepting all kinds of violence and intimidation peacefully. The right to defend one’s life is what forced them to start pointing their primitive weapons against the regime’s wild troops which were intentionally shooting with the aim to kill, not to intimidate.

History repeats itself often, so I am afraid to reach a point where all of us regret that we did not intervene forcefully to stop this massacre earlier. Look back to early history, and try to remind yourself about all the famous massacres or genocides in the long history of our strange humanity. You will figure out that everything happened due to ignorance and lack of interest or action. Then, what was the conclusion!? It was literally a disaster, a real one! So do we have to reach in Syria the level of Holocaust or the Rwandese genocide to drag the international community’s attention to act? Usually, they offer us the warm speeches and the nice words about the sympathy and the humanitarian help, but it is not enough at all. It needs a strong will and decisive intervention to solve it now. To be honest, I will be always confused and astonished by the different standards that people apply all over world!

The course of events in Syria, and since the beginning of the revolution in particular, has declined, although the situation has not reached the bottom yet. So it is not hard to understand that the events in Syria are expected to get worse, and the whole country is exposed to more destruction. This is highly dangerous, and will lead to a series of painful results in the coming future. Those results will affect the human being who is the most important element in this complicated equation, and will destroy the country’s normal structure, which will make it a real struggle for Syrian society to get back soon to normality after the end of these miserable circumstances. Furthermore, the surrounding region will be badly affected for sure. The area is complex and entangled in a lot of issues: ethnic origins, religions, economy…etc. Also, we have to take into consideration the number of the refugees who fled out to the surrounding countries, and their effect demographically and economically on these countries with time.

In the Syrian case, the international community doesn’t deal with a variation in the viewpoints between the two parties. The story is even more complicated. There is a regime that kills its people, and on the other hand, there are rebellious people seeking freedom and dignity. There is a system that uses all its forces, which were supposed to be at the Syrian’s service, to smash the unarmed people who are still begging for help from the international community, and actually what has been done yet remains minor. Unfortunately, we all know the dark side of history, when the international community neglected many massacres under many pretexts and then was forced to interfere, but it was always so late. This is what it seems will happen in the tragedy in Syria too. What a pity!

Orwa Al-Hussein

Member de la redaction valaisanne de Voix d’Exils

Ibrahim Koroma was a child soldier from the Sierra Leone civil war. He was one of thousands of youngsters kidnapped in 1997 by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels to help overthrow the government of Tejan Kabbah. He narrates to us his life as a child soldier and the traumatization he is going through up to now in Switzerland.

I was 13 years when I was kidnapped by the Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels. To harm or kill someone is very hard but one can do anything under the influence of drugs. Nevertheless, the pain felt after is difficult to explain and only God knows how one feels. Sometimes I ask myself questions like “Will I ever see my mother again? Why did I have to be a rebel fighting my own country? Why did I accept the rebels to take me rather than kill me? Why would I have to hear voices always telling that I will never have peace again even when I was just forced into rebel activities?”. But I have since failed to have answers to these questions. They all arise because I have done violence to people and people have done violence to me. If you knew me between the ages of 13 and 18, then you would know what “Captain dead body” is talking about. Captain dead body was the nickname given to me by my commander.

Atrocities we committed against humanity

We were ordered to mercilessly kill anybody supporting the government of Tejan Kabbah. We would take these people and put them inside one house, close it and spill petrol on it, then set them on fire. You would hear them screaming for help but no one would help.

Thinking about amputating people is also another big pain in my heart. Our commanders heard that the government wanted to hold elections, we were ordered to kidnap any civilian we found useful to join the revolution and to amputee hands off of those we found not useful. I have never cut off one’s hand but I brought many people whose hands were cut off. One girl nicknamed “Adama-Cut-Hand” was the boss of cutting off hands. We would bring the kidnapped civilians to our commanders for them to choose those who were useful and those who were not. Those who were not useful were taken to Adama. She always asked them if they wanted long or short sleeves. Long sleeve meant cutting ones hand from the wrist and short sleeve cutting from the arm. And choosing from the two was the best idea, otherwise one would instead be killed.

We attacked Portloko town and kidnapped civilians including a pregnant woman after we were ordered by our commander not to leave any civilian behind. The commander and others started betting on the baby in this woman’s womb. Some were saying he is a boy, while others said it’s a girl. They therefore cut the woman’s stomach and pulled out the fetus to settle their arguments. The woman and the baby later died in an unbearable pain.

It’s terrible to hear innocent people crying for their lives while being burnt, shot, slaughtered or amputated. I am now hunted everyday by people’s crying voices. I at times think I don’t have any future. I always hear voices saying: “you will never have peace after all you have caused to humanity, its better you die”. I live in fear and I feel like I shouldn’t live because of all my bad experience and memory to all the atrocities I regret to have done. I always ask the Lord to have mercy on me and forgive me for all the atrocities I have committed.

Unanswered questions

As I am writing now, Switzerland wants to deport me back to my country and they want to take me back because I told them the truth about me. I have promised to kill myself if they tried to deport me. They don’t understand that it wasn’t out of my will that I committed crimes against humanity. I did most of these crimes under the influence of drugs. I never wished to join the rebels.

Many Africans who are being persecuted or are running away from their countries to save their dear lives would come to a country like Switzerland, because when they watch on television, they see that Switzerland respects human rights but actually that’s not the case when you come here. Switzerland would rather welcome a corrupt African dictator saving money in their banks than giving refuge to a poor African being persecuted by the same dictator.

 Who are the bosses sponsoring all these wars and suffering that Africa is going through?

Who are the bosses benefiting from these wars?

Who are the bosses manufacturing these guns coming to Africa and killing innocent people every day?

Who are the bosses extracting African minerals and riches through aid to the notorious rebels?

Tell me, “Who are these bosses?”

The truth is that all those people making guns or financing wars don’t know what’s like being in war or what consequences it might cause to innocent humans and have never even killed a person but all they care about is their interests. I therefore think that the world should try to fight to prevent war than trying to cure it. I think the only thing we can do is to stop making guns or, at least, stop selling them to people who will use them for crimes against humanity.

Ibrahim KOROMA

Extracts selected by

Shawn WAKIDA

Membre de la rédaction lausannoise de Voix d’Exils