Syria

[mids2019]

Has Syria been forgotten and who is to blame for civilian deaths in this region. It is Assad or rebel groups?

(Its a conflict in the middle East with huge civilian casualties but doesn't involve Israel so I guess this thread will for a death)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war#:~:text=The%20Syrian%20civil%20war%20(Arabic,sponsored%20and%20non%2Dstate%20actors.

This interview with Mazen Hamada is devastating. Trigger alert: descriptions of torture:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=idaQR4cVLUw

He describes what happened to him between being arrested in 2011 and released in 2014. He settled in the Netherlands, but he was tricked into returning to Syria and then imprisoned again.

His body was found in Saydnaya prison yesterday.

Absolutely sick, I remember at the time when he went missing after travelling back to Syria again. It's infuriating that Assad is not going to have to face up and be prosecuted for the horrors he unleashed on his own people.

Putin or successor might sell him up for something

Thank you for that. I was sure I saw the same man speaking in English last night on the news. He was speaking from the Netherlands I think.

If it is the same person, I had not realised he had been imprisoned again and killed. It is horribly upsetting to learn of it.

What an extraordinary young man full of ability and talent. To think he had been through all that and yet managed to learn a conference talk by heart in English even while he was a new refugee.

His descriptions are powerful and moving. Perhaps he would have been a writer had he lived.

It must have been terrible for him to learn that a bribe set him free when he was due to be killed by a guard swopping him with his best friend, who really had been due to be set free, and his friend killed instead of him.

I wonder if his brother, Ali, who went with him to Sweden too, is still alive?

You don't seem to have any compassion for what these people have been through. Added to that, I doubt if its practical for several million to return at once. We have to hope a government is soon in place to manage a really complicated situation including managing the return of people with the skills they need. The economy is on its knees & its all understandably pretty chaotic.

Pakistan is in the process of sending a lot (millions) back to Afghanistan - about 700,000 have goen back in the last year alone (partly because the Taliban in Pakistan via various Afghanis have been engaged in terrorism in Pakistan so Pakistan no longer want them. These are always such complicated situations.

The one certainty seems to be that there is no country on the planet other than the USA which is as popular as the UK in terms of numbers of people moving here. We must be doing something right to be so much desired as a home.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj90138ejrdt

Interim PM named.

Yeah. You forced whole world to learm English...

On a serious note. Many, many people still believe UK is like 15 years ago. The "work hard, live well" thing. The news that it is not and child poverty levels, for example, are absolutely abysmal and iirc one of the qorst in rich countries kind of did not make it out fully yet to people...

For some, the UKs or western Europe’s poverty is a millions times better than the reality back home. A small council flat with a functioning bath and running water, kids attending a proper school is heavenly compared to Living in a refugee town with make shift homes.

@Xenia have you been forcing people to learn English, that's just cruel and unnecessary.
Today I was reminiscing about the BBC Indian language programmes we watched as children where a string of Hindi would have a random English word in, and in return we got shampoo, pyjamas, bungalow, jodhpur.........

@Xenia "The one certainty seems to be that there is no country on the planet other than the USA which is as popular as the UK in terms of numbers of people moving here. "

That's not a certainty at all, it's not even remotely true. In terms of immigrant relative population we are middle-ranking in Europe (lower than Germany and even places like Estonia and Iceland), and absolutely dwarfed by places like the gulf states.

@SuzieNine I couldn't argue with your ranking of European nations, but the gulf states don't accept refugees, at all. Even non-nationals who buy properties or who work in the UAE for 20+ years are not eligible to apply for asylum, much less citizen status. Your visa and residential rights are almost exlusively based on work or property.

They do accept refugees. I met some. Very few and selectively though, they paid heavily Jordan and else to keep most.
They do not give citizenship easily, but then again, their passports are well high ranking in visa free travel. It's probably also a way to keep native population happy with being only like 10% of total population. They get cheaper tarrifs etc.

UK being popular in relation to my comment above was not about people seeking asylum, but raw numbers " Britain also reported the second-highest number of immigrants by raw numbers of arrivals. Only the US welcomed more people than Britain last year, with 1.2m people moving to America."

We just do not seem to be able to get the message out here that the UK may not be the best place to come - after the USA we are most popular on the whole planet.

. https://www.yahoo.com/news/britain-migration-surge-bigger-other-101216413.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKV3_j3mZ8foFoahMd7JdxABiO8qzvwX3Yb0w3ErdQixT8rXF5NgEWPjLRzIYRgIV0bUgndy-vSrrfggkDn9wa8CH8kyc26Dke2bUx3AG5Nw_3h9jfSwQZ2JZgMHBs6GrdhcqucVgIxOwCKD0LT5gLWf1DtIxOcCRfAHbXhl-QIZ

[I have not forced anyone to learn English. My ancestors were down coal mines aged 10 back to the 1700s on just about all sides so I don't even think I can be tainted by blood in terms of going abroad and making people learn English]

Yeah of course I suggestes by "you" that it was Xenia personally😂
I still find it mega frustrating that English could not come up with one extra personal pronoun😂
Let's not do miners thing because guess what my family did adter they dug themselves out of proper old style EE poverty (4 years of school is more than enough, we need you to make money), to just above that.

Really. It is mainly because English is widely taught (surprise) and it really did not get out to many parts of the world that it is similarly to USA, as someone called USA, 3rd world country with a Gucci belt.
People do not know MANY cannot afford to heat their home properly, or cannot just shop for food without worry. Or afford housing without gov subbing (actually the benefits are one draw). It's not a message any country wants to put out, is it. I am atill meeting people who think it's all fone and dandy and working in shop would allow them nice life. We all know it does not really.

However, we are steering from Syria topic, so I will revert back to it.

We find it bit odd Turkey and Lebanon report movement to border while there are no reports from Jordan border.

How do you think it compares to the countries people are fleeing from though?

No one is kept here, voluntary returns are possible

There is an article about him here with more accurate information, it looks like I’ve gotten some details wrong in what I said which was cribbed from X:

www.middleeasteye.net/news/we-tried-very-hard-help-him-mazen-hamadas-peers-mourn-their-tortured-friend-news-his-death

It doesn't and I never said it does, this was not in relation to returns and overall I might numbers

It's really easy to fact check yourself before making up such bigoted tosh.

UK doesn't even make into the top ten.

Immigration and asylum are different.

Just what the Syrian people need! An Israeli bombing attack, which is becoming less targeted, and now includes some ports, and the navy. What the hell is the matter with that vile government? Also, not meddling in the Syrian country's future? It kinda looks different than that, doesn't it?

It pains me to say this but Israel just looks like a rogue state these days. I wish they’d stop their attacks on their neighbours.

Sadly that seems to be the case.

On the issue of Syrians going back, at least have the decency to wait until they've picked themselves up from the rubble, and rebuild some of their infrastructure. Decency towards those who have suffered so badly isn't difficult to achieve.