Syrians Escaping to Jordan Tell of Suffering

Thursday, 4 August, 2011

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Hani Hazaimeh

Syrian refugees crossing into Jordan have described the ordeals they faced at the hands of the Damascus regime, as the bloody clampdown on the uprising continues.

Refugees arriving in Ramtha in northern Jordan, not far from Deraa across the border in Syria, where pro-democracy rallies first kicked off four months ago, said they had witnessed and heard of abuses by Syrian security forces in the town.

Ali, a Syrian taxi driver who said he’d been detained for 17 days during the military clampdown, described executions of detained men.

“They gathered us – blindfolded and with hands tied behind our backs – at dawn and took us to the town’s stadium,” he said.

“I could see through the blindfold that some armed groups were gathering young men and made them face the wall. Within minutes I heard rapid gunfire and screams and later I learnt that they executed the young men.”

Another refugee said that he’d witnessed snipers on top of buildings hunting down demonstrators – in one incident he said he saw three people shot in the head.

One of the new arrivals in Ramtha described being dragged on his face in front of his family when Syrian troops broke into his house at dawn.

“It was very humiliating,” he said. “I could tolerate the physical torture to some extent because one way or the other you can forget about it eventually, but the insults and the swearing at us was far more painful. They called my mother a whore, my father a bastard and my daughters sluts. It is something I will not forget for the rest of my life.”

Others spoke of the problems they faced getting out of the country. One man described how he had to evade frontier guards carrying his three children, all under five.

“I had to do this after the Syrian civil status department stopped renewing our passports, to prevent [people] leaving the country,” said the car mechanic from Deraa.

His wife, who had a valid passport, was able to follow her husband and children three days later through the official border crossing.

“When I saw my children leaving me I was devastated,” she said, as tears ran down her cheeks. “I was not sure I will ever be able to see them again.”

Ahmad, a Deraa resident who daily ferries goods between Syria and Jordan, said he was going to stay in Syria to fight for freedom and democracy, predicting further violence in his home town.

“They closed down the central mosque and earlier this week and an imam told citizens that it was up to us to take the mosque back,” he said, adding that locals were arming themselves to counter the violence of the security forces who’ve been deployed in the town since March 18.

To date, Syrian human rights groups estimate that the number of people killed by the regime could be as high as 2,000, with more than 12,000 detained and a similar number missing. At the same time, several thousand have fled Syria into neighbouring Turkey and Lebanon, with those in the south of the country heading for Jordan.

An opposition leader who is now in Jordan told how, unlike in Egypt where the authorities shut down the internet, the Syrian authorities merely slowed it down and minimised upload capacity to prevent any footage of the violence from leaking out.

“The Jordanian telecommunications coverage extends into the Syrian territories. We started using Jordanian sim cards to take footage of the regime’s brutality and send it to the international media to expose this inhumanity,” he said, adding that those who made it to Jordan are also using these phones to communicate with their relatives inside Syria.

While officially the Jordanian government continues to insist there are no Syrian refugees on its soil, estimates by those who are supporting them suggest that close to 2,000 families have arrived in their town and other settlements in the region.

In Ramtha, where many of the Syrians first arrive after making it across the border, the local authorities are reluctant to talk about their new arrivals, fearing that it could cause a political confrontation with the Syrian government.

Despite this concern, the Jordanian authorities have quietly been working over the last few weeks to ease restrictions for the growing number of refugees turning up in Jordan.

While the number of Syrian arriving in Ramtha is still relatively small, residents are concerned that if the flow continues it will cause a housing shortage.

“At the moment, there is not a big problem, because most of those who have come over are quite wealthy and can afford to take some time off and look after themselves while they are in Jordan,” said local journalist Abdul Halim Zo’bi, who before the uprising was a regular visitor to Deraa and was in the town during the early weeks of the protests.

Zo’bi, who currently has one Syrian family staying with him, explains that most are afraid to speak out about what is happening in their country.

“It’s not an easy decision for these poor guys to talk to the media,” he said. “Trust has been absent from their vocabulary for decades due to the strong grip by the Syrian intelligence on the public’s life.

“Their worst fear is that sooner or later they will have to go back home and if the Syrian regime is still in power, then the authorities will persecute them for speaking out.”

Hani Hazaimeh is a Jordanian journalist.