On a rainy April afternoon, Bassam sat at a Limassol cafeteria and recounted harrowing details from the three nights and three days he spent clinging to an inflatable tire in the open sea, awaiting rescue or death.

In the early hours of Friday March 14, 2025, Bassam, his brother, his cousin and a neighbor followed a smuggler across the Syrian border to Lebanon, where they boarded a small fiberglass boat with a Yamaha engine. In addition to the 21 men on board, the boat was loaded with gallons of fuel and water, and two boxes of dates. Their journey to Cyprus, some 160km westwards, could last anywhere from hours to days, depending on sea conditions and navigation skills.

The recent collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, in December 2024, had created a sudden instability for ethnic minorities like Bassam, and thousands were fleeing for fear of extremist attacks and retributions. (Most of the men on the boat were Sunni, the majority religious group in Syria.)

Eight months before the change in power, in April 2024, Cyprus authorities stopped processing asylum claims from Syrian nationals, claiming that the country’s security status needed reassessment. The island’s proximity to the Middle East had attracted the highest number of asylum applications per capita of any EU country, and the government adopted policies aimed at curtailing the influx of people. But Bassam had read on Facebook that the application process had reopened, and connected with the smuggler who published the misleading posts. He was told that the passage costs $3300, with $2000 due upfront, he told the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism Association (SIRAJ).

With good weather and calm seas, the fiberglass boat the men boarded in the pre-dawn hours should have reached Cyprus while there was still daylight, but the journey took longer than expected.

The timeline is murky, but phone records obtained by reporters show that one of the perished passengers, 21-year-old Hassan, called his father from the driver’s satellite phone at 18:16. The sun had already set and, according to Bassam, they could see the lights of the Cypriot coast.

But the waves grew bigger under the March full moon, and the small boat filled with water faster than they could empty it, Bassam recalled. When a big swell overwhelmed the struggling vessel from the rear, the men quickly found themselves in the blackness of the sea.

Bassam had a small plastic water bottle tucked into the pocket of his pants, and the inflatable tire the smugglers had distributed to each passenger. The frigid water, as low as 16 degrees, was turbulent. At first he was near five men, including his brother, but soon the waves separated them.

When the sun came up the next morning Bassam said he first looked for his brother. He saw him from a distance but couldn’t reach him. He could hear the others calling out to each other, and praying.

Bassam had been saving his small bottle of water, but as he tried to help a man next to him who slipped out of his inflatable tire, a wave took it away. Later he watched another man let go of his tire to try to swim to Cyprus, only to drown.

Bassam didn’t know how to swim, so he held on, floated, and prayed to God. He said he saw many boats – commercial and fishing boats – and called out to them, but they passed him by. At one point he saw a military helicopter, but it too passed him. Eventually, his parched throat stopped making noise. When he awoke on Monday he was completely alone.

Bassam survived an estimated 64 hours before a white helicopter appeared above him and proceeded to pull him out of the sea. An hour earlier, a Cypriot coast guard vessel had spotted the only other survivor, Raad. The rest of the men from the boat had perished.

Reporters from Cyprus and Syria have pieced together the most comprehensive account of the three days and nights, based on interviews with authorities, survivors, and NGO workers – as well as officials’ public statements, and vessel and flight-tracking data.

A rescue helicopter hoists a survivor from the sea. Credit: CNA, March 18 2025. Republished with permission.

The Confounding Search

When relatives stopped hearing from the men that night, and couldn’t reach anyone on the satellite phone, they began to panic.

Watch The Med Alarm Phone, a group of volunteers assisting refugees in distress in the Mediterranean, said a relative contacted them on Saturday, March 15, and shared the satellite phone number, and a photo someone sent from their journey. The image had geolocation metadata that allowed Alarm Phone to estimate coordinates and the time the photograph was taken. (Reporters were unable to independently verify the metadata.)

Alarm Phone sent an initial email alerting authorities of a boat in distress, and the estimated coordinates at 11:11pm Cyprus time. By then, more than 24 hours had passed since the sinking.

When Alarm Phone volunteers followed up their emails with calls to the Cyprus-based Joint Rescue Coordination Center, which oversees multi-branch emergency responses, they were told that authorities were investigating.

JRCC told reporters that they launched an immediate search and rescue operation that night, but also underscored that they considered Alarm Phone’s distress alert unconfirmed.

“Many tips end up being confirmed but not all,” JRCC’s then-Deputy Commander George Economou told CIReN (he has since been appointed commander). “There were cases where they shared information that did not correspond with reality,” he added, in reference to Alarm Phone.

“For us there is a gradation of information,” JRCC’s then-Commander Andreas Charalambides told reporters. “If a piece of information that somebody is in danger is not confirmed, there is a specific process we follow and begin to investigate until danger or no danger is confirmed”.

“The process follows the same steps we follow as if we have confirmation – it’s just that no rescue occurs. So from the search and rescue part, we begin the search until we have confirmation.”

Reporters understood that the referenced process included contacting the satellite phone service provider, scanning key areas with onshore cameras and radar, and issuing a radio alert to nearby vessels.

According to Economou, the patrol boat out at sea that night – Pentadaktylos – was ordered to the location shared by AlarmPhone in their email.

Vessel tracking data obtained by OCCRP and analyzed by reporters shows that Pentadaktylos was on its usual patrol route that night, but it did not approach Alarm Phone’s coordinates, remaining at least 30km away between midnight and 8am.

Only after Pentadaktylos docked at Ayia Napa marina, around 9am on Sunday, does data show activity in the area indicated by Alarm Phone.

Authorities told CIReN that around 9am is when they independently obtained from the satellite phone company the coordinates of the last location of the boat driver’s phone, just 20 nautical miles from Alarm Phone’s coordinates, and confirmation that the last signal was sent 30 hours earlier.

Tracking data shows the Cypriot police boat Evagoras Pallikaride patrolling in an area 20-25km north of AlarmPhone’s coordinates on Sunday.“

According to officials, search and rescue helicopters were also deployed on Sunday, and air tracking data shows a surveillance plane circling the area. Officials later stated that they searched some 2750 square nautical miles.

However, when the first survivor was located by the Coast Guard on Monday afternoon, the minister of justice publicly stated that it was “completely random and coincidental,” echoing statements by the defense minister. The JRCC also stated that Monday afternoon is when they launched a search and rescue operation that led to the rescue of the second survivor and seven bodies.

According to Economou they were found within 12 nautical miles of the NGO’s coordinates and within 14 nautical miles from the satellite phone’s last known location, 37 hours after the initiation of the search.

The  JRCC declined to explain the inconsistencies identified in this investigation, and referred reporters to a press release from March 19, 2025, which stated that there were discrepancies in the testimonies of the survivors rescued two days earlier, and that they may have been unrelated to the shipwreck flagged by Alarm Phone on Saturday night.

The vessel “Pentadaktylos” on patrol on March 15-16, 2025. Credit: Global Fishing Watch

Navigating the System

After the shipwreck, AlarmPhone issued a public statement, questioning whether Cypriot authorities acted in “a timely and adequate manner,” what concrete steps were taken, and whether the response to the incident will be investigated.

Political parties AKEL, VOLT and GREENS and NGO Cyprus Council for Peace also demanded an investigation into the circumstances that led to the shipwreck.

Reporters confirmed in April that a police investigation into the shipwreck is ongoing but did not recieved an update on the status by publication time. JRCC did not reply to questions about an internal investigation into its response.

The survivors, meanwhile, are in legal limbo in Cyprus.

Bassam now lives in Limassol with relatives who support him while he awaits approval of his asylum claim. Raad doesn’t have permanent housing or material support.

By mid-2025, authorities resumed processing of Syrian asylum applications, though most applicants have been rejected, the Ministry of Migration told CIReN.

“Decisions have already been issued, mostly rejecting a significant number of applications, always following an individualized assessment,” the ministry said in an email.

But the survivors told CIReN and SIRAJ that they haven’t heard anything about their cases.

Corina Drousiotou, the senior legal advisor to the UNHCR-funded asylum rights NGO

Cyprus Refugee Council, said the men were released from the hospital shortly after the rescue “without any support by the state, psychological or material,” in terms of benefits or accommodation. Drousiotou added they were initially denied access to the Social Welfare Service and the benefits asylum seekers are entitled to.

“One of the survivors belongs to a minority and has had support from the relevant community, whereas the other survivor does not have community support and is still struggling, as the benefit he receives is often delayed which leads to him being homeless,” Drousiotou confirmed to CIReN.

The Cyprus Refugee Council said they expected Asylum Services under the Ministry of Migration Policy to prioritize the cases of the two survivors due to their vulnerability, but “to date the cases are still pending.”

The Deputy Ministry of Migration and International Protection did not respond to CIReN’s request for comment on the status of the cases.

“I won’t go back,” said Bassam, who studied chemistry at a university in Syria, but is not allowed to work in Cyprus due to his status. “The situation there is terrible — nothing but killings, kidnappings, and chaos, even in our own areas.”

The post Surviving a Shipwreck, Drowning in the System appeared first on SIRAJ.

Without the hacksaw, the day’s haul is paltry. He and his friend Basel*, two years his senior, used the fine-toothed blades to weaken the steel rods sticking out of building debris, then twisted them until they snapped. They must now resort to picking up scrap off cuts, but after months of scavenging among the same mounds of grey rubble- once opposition suburbs turned battlefield during the 14 years of war – there is only so much left.

To them, steel scrap fetches only 500 Syrian pounds per kilo – the equivalent of four US cents. On a good day, their harvest might come to 25 kilos. On a bad day, a meagre ten. It’s a risky business, and they know it, but it reportedly pays more than picking up plastic.

While Ahmad and Basel’s day is slow, around them, others are swarming across the blasted land. They drift in and out of the scene, swallowed by the open bellies of the buildings, only to resurface in their gouged-out undergrounds, as they pick their way across a pale blanket of shattered masonry, perhaps just inches away from the next sleeping mortar round.

They are covered in multiple layers of clothes and white chalk, their faces half-hidden by dusty rags: men and women distinguishable only by their eyes, bloodshot with fatigue, and by the forms of their white, calloused hands, which they would not shake with visitors. Almost every day, they scavenge from morning until sunset, amid the reek of burnt plastic, asbestos dust, and broken concrete.

For years, long before rebel troops marched over the capital in December 2024, poor displaced families and their children have come to the ruined peripheries of Damascus to collect scrap rebar, aluminium cables, and twisted pieces of iron plates. Under the Assad regime, most of these lands were no go areas. For the past four years of war, Ahmad and Basel’s families have had access under a special agreement: they would be among the many that made up Assad’s personal army of scrappers.

“The Fourth Division would grant you permission to enter here to work and sell to them,” said one of the men that gathered around us during a break from scavenging through the rubble, the face hidden by an ashy rag, “you couldn’t sell to anyone else.” rights

A scene that should haunt us all: one piece of this steel scrap – bought for a mere 500 Syrian pounds per kilo by desperate families during and after the war, with the covert backing of local warlords – may have been used to build a stadium in Brazil, the Hong Kong International Airport or Dubai’s most famous luxury hotel, the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab; it may also have ended up in a brand-new building apartment in Germany, or found its way into motorways in Romania.

Ahmad and Basel are at the bottom of a supply chain that is indispensable for ‘cleaning’ one of the dirtiest industries in the world: steelmaking.

‘Clean’ steel

Steel forms the backbone of industrial society: from railway lines and ships to the beams that support our buildings, and the weapons that can destroy them. The process of producing this durable material from iron ore, carbon, and various other metals is responsible for almost 11% of the global CO2 emissions.

In the last decade, new technologies to produce recycled steel have garnered the industry’s interest: it is cleaner and, most of all, cheaper; electric arc furnaces, under the correct conditions, consume around 70% less energy than traditional iron ore-based blast furnaces. Turkey’s producers were particularly compelled: in two decades they turned recycled steel production into the fifth largest contributor to the national economy. Turkey is now listed among the major steel producers in the world, with a steel export value estimated at $16.1 billion USD.

The issue with scrap metal, indispensable for the production of recycled steel, is that it is limited. There is barely enough of it in the world to meet the demand. As production volumes of steel are surging worldwide, ferrous scrap is now treated as strategic for the future of many national metal industries.

As the world’s largest importer of ferrous scrap, Turkey has turned it into its humble gold. Yet, not all is known about the country’s discreet sourcing network, which experts and researchers we spoke to described as opaque, unmonitored, and hard to trace.

In economies that industrialised early, scrap metal is abundant. Europe’s scrapyards are overflowing with end-of-life ferrous goods, which are the source of more than half of Turkey’s imported scrap. When the corridors of Brussels filled with whispers of a possible export ban – meant to protect the continent’s bleeding supply -Turkish companies began to look elsewhere to keep the imports flowing, sources in the sector told us. And as it happens, few events generate metal waste as swiftly as war.

We estimated that over the last five years, between 6 and 10% of the scrap recycled in Turkey came from countries we can define as in conflict: Syria, but also Libya, Lebanon, Ukraine, Russia, and Israel/Palestine.

Despite the pittance paid to vulnerable people in conflict zones to dismantle entire battle-scarred neighbourhoods, the scrap metal trade represents a $46 billion market.  Because of a lack of international monitoring and an opaque supply chain, Turkey – and the world’s – hunger for scrap predictably attracts exploitative individuals hoping to bankroll their wars.

The New Arab (TNA), in collaboration with SIRAJ and El Paìs, documented the journey of steel scrap headed to Turkish mills from war-torn countries. We searched for documents in abandoned Assad-era checkpoints, sifted through tens of thousands of maritime traffic records, examined satellite images for shipments, and pieced together leads through dozens of conversations with workers and experts across multiple countries.

This year-long investigation proves that, during the last decade, roughly one tenth of Turkey’s ferrous scrap was sourced from war economies. Under Assad’s order, scrap-loaded trucks exited the country from Lebanese border crossings, to eventually turn up in Turkish private companies’ scrapyards.

Trade data show that several Turkish steel mills ship their finished products to European clients – meaning that conflict-sourced steel is most likely used across the continent.

Opaque due diligence

TNA contacted human rights officers within large European construction companies. Though they requested anonymity, they admitted that human rights abuses in the scrap metal supply chain can go overlooked within due diligence processes. They justified this by pointing to the complexities of the trade, notably its fragmented procurement and limited traceability.

Other sources from Artimet, an independent Turkish inspection company monitoring various stages of the scrap supply chain, confirmed to TNA that their quality controls consist of merely visual inspections.

Artimet representatives added that inspections would not probe how the scrap had been collected or who had profited from it. They told TNA that the end client would not care.

Many of the steel companies in Turkey declined to speak to us or ignored our requests for comment. These include Diler, Kroman, Mescier, Yazici, and Yesilyurt Demir Çelik, companies which this investigation found to be involved in procuring scrap metal from conflict countries. TNA also contacted Turkey’s Ministry of Customs and Trade, inquiring about the controls in place to detect conflict-linked scrap metal. We received no response in time for publication.

The general director of one of Turkey’s major steel companies candidly admitted, during a conversation on background, that scrap may be sourced from war-ravaged territories, including Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Libya: “The steel of the destroyed buildings [there] will become scrap.” The company publicly declares exporting to more than 60 countries.

Many in the sector seem to be mostly clueless about the possible implications of their tainted supply chains.

The Foreign Trade Department of one of Turkey’s major scrap-dealing companies told TNA that they didn’t have specific policies in place to rule out links between imported scrap and warring factions. “We only purchase scrap from places we know and have worked with for many years,” they explained. The same scrap may then be sold to European countries like Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

While the Turkish scrap-dealing company claimed it was not importing scrap from Syria, they admitted to buying from both eastern and western Libya.  Our investigation shows that this is not uncommon: Syria and Libya are just some of the many countries in conflict where the scrap metal trade has been exploited to feed the region’s war machine. Turkish companies are even trading with entities with which the Ankara government has been at loggerheads for years.

Israel, for instance, is among the countries at war from which Turkey buys scrap metal. It remains difficult to determine how much of this scrap originates from Israeli industrial and consumer waste, and how much comes from the devastation it wreaks upon the occupied Palestinian territories. Turkey imposed a commercial embargo on Israel only in mid-2024, in protest of its genocide in Gaza. Despite this, some Turkish media outlets reported that scrap shipments continued through third-country vessels or falsified freight documents, leading the Turkish government to sanction several ships involved. This way of dodging restrictions would be consistent with industry practices revealed by our investigation.

Trading with entities in conflict affected countries is not inherently illegal, but in some cases trade is restricted or banned under sanctions, laws or embargoes. Specifically, for cargoes of steel scrap coming from Haftar’s Libya or Assad’s Syria, the habitual supply standards and procedures are not enough, a senior researcher at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), Blanca Racionero Gomez, explained to TNA.

“It’s not so important if you have suppliers coming from war-torn countries. What’s important is if their supply is financing conflict, is exacerbating human rights abuses and is causing environmental damage. That’s what’s important, and what needs to be addressed through due diligence processes,” said Racionero Gomez.

“Because it’s a conflict-affected area, you need to […] be more vigilant than in other areas where information is easier to access,” explained the BHRRC researcher, calling on any company downstream the steel scrap trade to be held accountable.

Syria’s 4th Division and its army of scrap pickers

Wherever Assad’s special army of scrap collectors went, only cement would remain.

Most of Qaboun, a suburb in Damascus, long contested between opposition and loyalist forces during the civil war, has been reduced to a grey wasteland of pulverised cement. There are paths to walk through the mounds and the waste is partitioned into small islands of debris. Anywhere outside these beaten trails may be unsafe: unexploded ordnance lays below the surface, sleeping but only lightly.

The horizon of desolation, sentenced by the low, uneven expanse of crumbling concrete, is betrayed by cut-outs of lush green, disorienting against the opaque haze that surrounds us. Life is flowing back in, now that the Assad forces can no longer prevent residents from returning to the hull of their homes.

As in many of the areas that bore witness to years of fierce battles, none of the buildings’ roofs remained: not because of the fighting, but because the steel rebars had been stripped from the supporting columns. Some recognised what remained of their home only by the pattern on the floor tiles, recalled Mohammad al-Imam, an activist from Daraya, another gutted town south-west of the capital, which rose to prominence as an iconic arena of civil resistance during the early phase of the uprising against Assad.

As Mohammad walks us through Daraya’s barren streets, ringed by the husks of roofless buildings, he regularly points at floors hanging in the void, pinning it on Assad’s forces: “This one was taken down, you see, look, its iron was removed – but this is not detonation, this has been taken down to take the iron.”

They wouldn’t say anything about the children; anyone could work, confirmed Ahmad’s mother, recalling the four years where they had no choice but to toil as steel pickers for the 4th Division, the Syrian military’s elite unit. Her large blue eyes gleaming over a face powdered in white dust by a day of sifting through rubble. “They used to buy it cheaply, [but sold it] expensively,” she told TNA, “it’s known.”

Formed in the 1980s, the 4th Armoured Division effectively served as a praetorian guard for the Assad family, charged with protecting the regime from internal and external threats. Over the course of the civil war, Western sanctions cut Syria off from the global financial system and the 4th Division became central to the regime’s war economy, developing into an amorphous parastate towering over strategic – and mostly illicit – businesses in Syria (such as the manufacture and smuggling of captagon).

It operated under Major General Maher al-Assad’s command, the brother of toppled President Bashar al-Assad and arguably the second most powerful man in the regime. Their intimidating checkpoints were pervasive across the country, yet the Division’s true circle of power clustered around Damascus’s peripheries.

It’s no accident that Qaboun and Daraya, among the areas to suffer the most extensive pillaging, were under the Division’s control. The scrap metal trade – mostly extracted from plundered private properties and infrastructure in former rebel-controlled areas – was one of the unit’s economic revenues.

Bashar al-Assad used to layer relatives, proxies, and front companies between him and his revenue sources. The Syrian Minerals and Investment Company – a private entity founded in 2018 – worked as one of these fronts through the 4th Division.

In 2019, the Assad regime issued Resolution No. 3061, granting the company the right to import and export key materials, including metals, iron, and aluminium. The firm was in charge of issuing permits for contractors, who would purchase scrap on its behalf.

Two years after its establishment, it had already been sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for its connection with businessman Khodr Ali Taher, a man with long-standing ties with the 4th division. Taher was also known as the “Prince of Crossings” in national media, for the ease he would be wending his way across regime and rebel-controlled areas.

Western sanctions and arrest warrants hang over the heads of many businessmen and military commanders who were part of the 4th Division’s network that capitalised on the bloody scrap metal trade.

Previous investigations have already exposed how the Assad regime and its cronies had been profiting from looting iron scrap from opposition areas that would feed the country’s steel plants. Yet little is known about how scrap has turned into a profitable export commodity sold to Turkish companies; a discreet trade that lasted years, while Turkey-backed opposition militias and Assad’s army have been battling each other.

Burn the evidence

The road winding through the Masnaa-Jdeidat Yabous passage, connecting Beirut to Damascus, is lined with Bashar al-Assad’s faces. Most have been removed from billboards and posters, but those that could not be taken down have been crossed out.

Next to the traffic highway, amid sallow mountain ridges, vehicles laden with goods and people thread the main Beirut-Damascus crossing. An unassuming and doorless single-storey structure stands on the side of the road. Another of the President’s crossed-out faces, plastered over the outer wall, greets passersby.

The place is trashed, full of torched, half-burnt documents. Perhaps, as the news that Assad’s forces were crumbling, someone returned to the checkpoint in a bid to destroy evidence of the regime’s activities, a story often heard in Syria after December 8, 2024.

This was a 4th Division checkpoint located near the Yafour Bridge, in a rural area west of Damascus, along the M1 highway to Beirut,  just 20 kilometers from the Lebanese border crossing. One of the many under the 4th Division’s sway, racked up across major domestic and international highways, part of a strategy to take control of vital export routes.

When Assad’s many faces still towered over these lands, this checkpoint was expecting to see a hundred scrap metal trucks cross in just one month. (We can’t know when exactly – part of the page was burned. The date was lost). Each lorry had to pay its due, the amounts spelled in black ink in an exclusive “pre-feasibility study” we photographed. In just one month, the 4th Division was planning to extract a total of roughly 125 million Syrian pounds [$9,615] from 100 scrap metal trucks en route to Lebanon.

For years, this unremarkable checkpoint quietly collected proof of a major export route for scrap pillaged by regime forces and its transfer to Lebanon. Scrupulous workers amassed records detailing the passage’s ins and outs. Most of them are lost in the arson. But the few pieces we were able to photograph provide insights into how Assad’s economic machine was moving metal scrap and other goods across the country. The documents also offer a rare glimpse into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue likely generated by this checkpoint. Some of the most recent records date back to September 2024.

On 10 April 2024, the Yafour Bridge checkpoint received a fax from another crossing. “For your information, no commercial convoy crossed the post.” Written in a few lines of black printed ink and signed twice, the headed notification passed from Colonel Louay Ahmad Habib, who was in charge of the Manbij crossing (also known as al-Tayhah crossing) between the regime and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to Major-General Ghassan Bilal, Maher al-Assad’s right-hand man. Bilal is also on the EU and US sanctions lists for his affiliation with the Assad regime. By the time we found the document, he had likely already fled.

Documents we photographed confirm that scrap trucks, given their high value, were escorted by units of the 4th Division from the industrial centres of Hasiya, al-Matalla, and Adra across the border to Lebanon.

“They [i.e. the 4th Division] would give you permission to transport the materials to the factory. If you didn’t inform them, the vehicle, materials, and driver would be seized. This is the rule,” said a scrap reseller we talked to in Damascus.

According to the documents, the entity in charge of authorising the deployment of the 4th Division to escort scrap trucks was the Syrian Presidency’s General Secretariat, headed by Mansour Fadlallah Azzam, who is under Western sanctions for his role in the violent repression of the Syrian uprising. He was also Minister of Presidential Affairs between 2009 and 2023. The current whereabouts of Azzam are unknown.

Across the Syrian-Turkish border

The Masnaa passage isn’t the only corridor we were able to identify. Although to a lesser extent, evidence suggests that another crossing enabled metal scrap exports to Turkey.

Under a makeshift tent, nestled by mounds of grey waste and twisted metals that rest along the road connecting the small village of Killi with Idlib, in northern Syria, a collector we interviewed in a crowded scrapyard recounted the days during the war when larger players selling to Turkey would buy material from these very piles.

“This scrap iron comes from homes, and we buy it from local collectors” he explained. “The [local] iron companies buy it from us, export to Turkey, and also sell scrap within the liberated areas (i.e. areas under opposition control before Assad was toppled).” At a distance, young men press large chunks of iron scrap inside a deafening machine.

Turkey’s trade data indicate that, between 2021 and 2024, over 200 thousand tons of metal scrap entered the country from areas under rebel control in northern Syria. Most transited from the Bab al-Hawa border gate, which was manned by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the hardline Islamist paramilitary group which is leading the new Syrian administration.

The Idlib deputy governor, Qutaybah Khalaf, told TNA that, over the years, Turkey-bound scrap may have passed through the rebel-controlled border crossings. But he described this trade as “private work” that saw no involvement from local authorities.

However, experts do not discount the likelihood that entities loyal to the regime could have collaborated with opposition forces in facilitating the scrap trade.

“Even for the captagon trade, for example, there were some people inside opposition areas who were working with the 4th Division and Hezbollah,” said Ayman Aldassouky, a researcher at Syrian think tank Omran for Strategic Studies, who focussed on the 4th Division’s economic network.

Nonetheless, statistics show that only marginal amounts of scrap flowed to Turkey via Syria’s northern land crossings. Turkish customs data may capture just part of the trade, and the 4th Division may as well have used those routes to smuggle scrap directly. But inland roads were fraught with opposition factions, which likely made Lebanon the main route – an off-book trade some deny exists, given the lack of official records. Were it not for a small anomaly in those same data.

The Lebanon route: numbers don’t add up. 

There is no trace of the trucks loaded with metal scrap flowing in through the Masnaa crossing in Lebanese public statistics. Yet something may give it away: the quantity of scrap metal generated locally seems not to keep up with the export volumes listed in national and international statistics. An unregistered source of metal scrap, slipping through the border, could explain the irregularity.

Most Lebanese workers and companies we spoke to deny dealing directly with Syrian scrap, but it seems no secret that Lebanon is a corridor for this trade. A source from the city of  Baalbek – a known hub for smuggling, northeast of Beirut – with personal knowledge of these networks, reported they were offered Syrian steel for a construction project by a contractor once.

Antoine Srour, a scrapyard owner in Beirut, explained to TNA that, in the aftermath of the latest Israeli war on Lebanon, “metal from the South all went to traders from the South. And metal from Dahiyeh [i.e. Beirut’s southern suburbs] all went to traders down there, to Shatila in particular. […] Northerners […] profited from Syrian metal.” In early 2025, media reports  described residents of the marginalised northern area of Wadi Khaled, near illegal border crossings, complaining about convoys of trucks entering Syria loaded with cement, fuel, and other Lebanese goods, and returning with vegetables and scrap metal. Detection would be hard: smuggled goods are often mingled with Lebanese ones, said the anonymous source.

In the Bekaa valley, tribal networks smuggle anything that has value – weapons, drugs, and stolen goods – in collusion with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia Islamist political and military group.

The anonymous source doesn’t believe the traders who denied having dealt with Syrian smuggled metal scrap are telling the truth. Hezbollah has had longstanding ties to Assad.

“Now, after Bashar al-Assad’s fall, I’m not sure how things are – they’re still bringing in stuff and taking stuff out, but it’s not the same as it used to be,” commented the source, “back in the day, when Hezbollah was in Syria, […] if you had permission from Hezbollah, you could just walk in and out whenever the hell you wanted without even an ID.”

International sanctions made the use of ports for exports difficult in Syria, with only a handful of vessels permitted to dock, explained researcher Ayman Aldassouky. This turned Lebanon into the perfect backdoor for the regime, allowing it to save face while doing business with an enemy in war such as Turkey.

Scrap iron and steel are Lebanon’s fourth largest export. UN Comtrade statistics show that over 2 million tons of iron scrap have left Lebanese ports headed to Turkey since 2013. Part of this may have consisted of re-exports from areas under the Assad regime’s control in Syria. The main customers of Syrian scrap exported through Lebanon were reportedly Turkey, India, and the United Arab Emirates, Ayman Aldassouky told TNA.

The other part comes from local production. Here too, waste pickers are often minors, many are Syrians. After Israel’s latest war on Lebanon, districts hit by airstrikes are also turning into a source of scrap, according to locals we talked to and media reports. With no active steel recycling mills in the country, a large part of this locally collected scrap is recycled in Turkey.

The Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade did not provide comment to TNA in time for publication.

Scrap fleet

Iskenderun, southeast Turkey, is a city tailored to industry: the outer roads are jammed with trucks, factories and their piers flank the highway, and a smoky chimney is always fixed on the horizon. Here, bulk ships carrying scrap from war-torn countries have been docking at the steel companies’ private piers for years.

In the Turkish companies’ furnaces, where a soup of metals and alloys is cooked at around 1,600 °C, the trail of the iron scrap’s origins melts away. Turkey’s finished steel ends up all around the world. Major destinations include Spain, Greece, Italy and Romania, but also Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, and Iraq.

Based on data provided by MarineTraffic, a ship tracking and maritime analytics provider, TNA analysed tens of thousands of entries for bulk carriers docking at Turkey’s various ports. As none of the governments of the countries involved in this business would grant us detailed access to customs and trade data, we verified their cargo through satellite images obtained through Maxar and Planet. We could verify at least forty ships in 2023 alone: not only scrap-loaded ships sailing from Lebanon, but also vessels departing from ports in Libya, Russia, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. In most of these countries, Turkish companies purchased scrap metal from both parties to the conflict.

What we identified is likely to be only the tip of this unknown trade, a fraction of the number of vessels whose tainted cargoes help bankroll conflict internationally.

Libya: rebuilding an army ‘scrap by scrap’ 

Following the toppling of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, Libya has been mired in conflict for around a decade. Despite the signing of a fragile ceasefire agreement in 2020, the country remains politically and militarily torn between two competing powers: the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) in the west and the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the east.

In mid-April 2023, a bulk carrier going by the name Nezha, approached the port of Benghazi in eastern Libya to fill its cargo with scrap. Two weeks later, it would unload the scrap at the Iskenderun pier of US-sanctioned MMK Metalurji, the Turkish subsidiary of Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, a Russian steel manufacturer that ranks among the largest in the world. The Nezha was previously identified as having violated EU, US, and UK sanctions by docking at ports in Russian-occupied Crimea in 2019 and subsequently had its license revoked.

We sought comment from MMK Metalurji but received no response in time for publication.

In the last decade alone, Turkey imported over 3 million tons of scrap steel from Libya, according to UN Comtrade data – more than even petroleum.

Although official data do not specify which of the two rival authorities the exports derive from, satellite images show that in recent years one of the most active ports for loading scrap has been Benghazi, in Haftar’s zone of control – a confirmation of Turkey’s most recent rapprochement with the rulers of eastern Libya. All the while, Ankara continues to support the GNU in the west, both militarily and politically.

According to human rights’ groups and the UN, forces under Haftar’s control have committed “horrific crimes” – including torture, sexual violence, and forced labour – against Libyans and migrants alike. Forces under the GNU command have likewise been accused of gross human rights violations.

Experts highlight that scrap metal export revenues have helped fund the rearmament of General Haftar’s forces, as they fight against their rivals in the west of the country.

“They started […] in the mid-2010s. Haftar used the money from the scrap to rebuild his army. Used the scrap from war-devastated Benghazi. Then even when Turkey intervened against Haftar, [he] still continued selling his scrap to Turkey,” said Tarek Megerisi, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite a Libyan ban on scrap exports, imposed to support domestic steel production, cargoes of steel waste continue sailing from all ports.

TNA reached out to the LNA as well as longtime spokesperson Lt Col Ahmed al-Mesmari for comment but they declined to respond.

All the ships loaded with metal scrap sailing from ports in Ukraine, Russia, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Libya that this investigation was able to identify, bear the risk of being associated with conflict financing and human rights violations.

European and Turkish companies downstream the supply of this trade cannot erase this risk either, explained Racionero Gomez from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Directives from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UN guiding principles set important benchmarks for companies, but even if corporate policies align with them, “their requirements and stringency vary a lot and one cannot fully trust standards blindly,” said Racionero Gomez, “we need to remember that the duty to protect human rights is on states, so we need regulations as well. We shouldn’t just put all the emphasis on standards.”

Rubble and mortar rounds with no end in sight

That day, Basel and Ahmad’s workday ended early – the sun was already setting over their rubble realm. They spent the remaining hours lingering unpredictably, waiting for the middlemen’s truck to come and pick up the scrap. But the truck would never come; the adults hid the bounty in a big hole, trusting no one would steal it before their return tomorrow.

All of them had small red veins in their eyes. From the 35-degree September sun, from the haze of dust rising from the rubble, or perhaps from the black smoke billowing from the bonfire lit to strip the plastic insulation from copper wires. “They’re more valuable like that,” they explained.

“Are there bombs here?”

“There’s plenty,” Ahmad quickly replied. He wanted to show us one, but we convinced him to desist. His uncle was digging and a rocket exploded on him, the families would later tell us.

Buyers would pay less for scrap originating from war zones, as there might be a chance that bombs and ammunition would show up in their load during inspections at border checks. There is no cheaper scrap than the Syrian one.

Our presence agitated the two kids. In the deserted yard shadowed by once-lively apartment complexes in a suburb of Damascus, they started playing with the shell of an improvised explosive device. With a twist of his arm, Basel threw it in a perfect arc two metres away, back into the rubble where it came from. Earlier that day, standing over a pile of rubble as kings, Basel and Ahmad had claimed proudly that they knew how to stay safe from war’s leftovers.

Assad or not, their lives haven’t changed much. They had been coming here since they were five or six, almost every day from dawn till dusk.

Ever since the HTS-led government has taken over, many of the men of Assad, involved in the scrap metal monopoly, have fled; some of them made deals with the new ruling forces and were reintegrated. The offices of the Syrian Minerals and Investment Company are open again, nestled in the industrial city of Adra. TNA contacted the company, seeking comment on their activities under the Assad regime and on whether scrap-related controls were introduced under the new administration. We received no response in time for publication.

Last June, the new rulers in Damascus imposed an export ban on scrap metal – now valuable for the country’s reconstruction – though it’s hard to say whether it will be respected: provisional statistics for 2025 reveal that minor exports of scrap have continued until a few months ago.

When contacted for comment, Syria’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour directed TNA to regional directorates for further information. Neither the Syrian Ministry of Finance nor the General Customs Directorate replied to our request for comment.

The people managing the scrap trade in Syria may change; Ahmad, Basel and their families will not. Tomorrow, they will still be here, together with the unexploded munitions, the broken cement, and the scrap for which they are paid only 500 Syrian pounds per kilo.

The post Metal scrap sourced from Syria and Libya’s wars fuel Turkey’s steel industry appeared first on SIRAJ.

Asa’ad and his daughter were able to cross the border for free healthcare months ago, under authorization from the Turkish government. According to figures issued by authorities from the Syrian crossing, more than 500 patients entered Turkey to receive treatment last February.

That was until the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) accelerated, prompting the Turkish government to cut off their lifeline in mid March, just three days after Ankara confirmed its first case and two weeks before Damascus declared the appearance of its first confirmed cases.

Doctors in the Idlib governorate have stated that since mid-March only a handful of high-risk emergency cases were allowed entry into Turkey, amidst an increasing number of cases in both countries. Patients suffering from cancer and other chronic illnesses are not among them.

For the time being, Marah, along with hundreds of other patients, remains stranded and unable to receive life-saving treatment.

As Asa’ad carries his ailing child on his forearm, she rests her head on his shoulder to whisper unintelligible words. His eyes fill with tears as he says, “She has jaw cancer and as the tumor grows, her pain grows with it. These days she cannot even sleep from the agonizing pain, despite taking all types of painkillers. My daughter needs treatment. Please, Lord, don’t forsake us.”

Due to lack of treatment in north Syria, doctors have unanimously agreed on the necessity for Marah to head to Turkey for medical care, says the family, but she remains until this day stranded at the border.

With the continued spread of the Coronavirus and the accompanying restrictions against Syrians along the Syrian-Turkish border, this investigation explores the plight of those suffering from cancer and other chronic diseases as they await their turn to enter Turkey.

400 Cancer Patients Await Reprieve

The Idlib Health Directorate describes the scale of the suffering cancer patients are facing in northern Syria, amidst increasingly poor medical care in the region. Issues hindering access to treatment include acute shortages of medicine, equipment, and working medical facilities, not to mention the rising costs of the few available treatment drugs left in the area. Such difficulties prompted patients to enter Turkey through the Bab Al Hawa Border Crossing, after obtaining a medical referral from the health directorate.

On the 13th of March, the Bab Al Hawa Border Crossing announced its closure towards ‘cold case’ patients – the Arabic term that encompasses chronic illness such as cancer and heart disease – and travellers. The crossing remained closed to cancer patients until the first of June, after which authorities allowed the entry of only 5 patients a day for treatment in Turkey, following coordination between the crossing administration and Turkish authorities.

Barely a week had passed before the border pass was once again closed off, an act prompted by a number of reported Coronavirus cases in north Syria. The crossing was reopened later on, under strict requirements for patients to adhere to safety measures against the virus.

According to Doctor Mohammad al-Salam working at Bab Al Hawa Hospital, the repeated closure led to a rise in critical cases among ‘cold case’ patients.

Mazen Alloush, the director of the Office of Public Relations and Information at the crossing, has revealed that over 400 cancer patients have been waiting their turn to enter Turkey for weeks, aside from the dozens that haven’t applied in the first place. Alloush also stressed that the majority of patients need entry as soon as possible due to mounting critical cases.

As a result of recent restrictions, the medical state of Maram al-Sayyed, 45, is in rapid deterioration. This is the third consecutive time she has not been allowed to cross into Turkey for treatment, even though her 8-month-old Leukemia condition has reached well into its advanced stages.

She takes several minutes to gather her strength to speak, “I am exhausted; the disease has been eating away at my body for some time, and I am getting worse. I cannot go to government-held hospitals where people are getting arrested, while Turkey here closes the crossing. What do I do as this cancer ravages my body?”

Maram is receiving pain medication as well as up to two blood transfusions per day at the Idlib Central Hospital, to no avail.

It is up to hospitals and health centers in the liberated north to work with aid agencies to secure medication for the time being, until the rest of the cases are transferred to Turkey for the appropriate treatment.

With spread of COVID-19, the Turkish government cut off the lifeline to Syrian cancer patients seeking treatment by mid March; Three days after Ankara confirmed its first case and two weeks before Damascus declared the appearance of its first cases

“The man’s attempts to enter his cancer-afflicted daughter into Turkish territory to receive the necessary treatment have yielded no results despite putting in several applications to gain entry… For the time being, Marah, along with hundreds of other patients, remains stranded and unable to receive life-saving treatment.”

Idlib opposition Health Director Dr. Monzer Khalil describes the damages done to health facilities in northwest Syria by stating, “The regime has targeted more than 75 medical centers from April 2019 until today. Government forces advancing on and taking areas from the northern rural Hamah to the Southern rural Idlib, have caused the facilities’ closure.” He went on to point out, “Acute shortages of specialized medical staff also cannot match patient numbers. There is also a shortage in medical equipment such as MRIs, CT scans, and many others.”

Delay Leads to Death

Weeks ago, Yousef Barbour, 22, passed away due to delays in entering Turkey to receive treatment, despite the repeated appeals of his mother. The young man had needed a bone marrow transplant.

Such amounts of increased suffering prompted Syrian humanitarian actors to call on Turkish authorities to find some way to admit critical cases for medical care in their hospitals. However, the crossing remains closed.

A 3-year lung cancer patient, Salem al-Ahmad, 50, had been lucky enough to enter Turkish hospitals for treatment earlier. He says, “Things were much simpler then; Turkish doctors at the border crossing would not reject cancer patients, who were considered priority cases. What used to be over 100 cases admitted per day became just five cases, and this led to the deprivation of many patients’ early treatment.”

Mazen al-Saud, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the Free Aleppo University and former director of Doctors Without Borders hospital in Ma’arat al-Nu’man, comments, “The lack of radiotherapy in the Idlib Governorate is a major obstacle for cancer patients there, since chemotherapy is often ineffective, with the tumor reappearing more aggressively in other areas in the body.”

He adds that the number of cancer patients in the Idlib region has multiplied by 10 percent than in previous years, specifically breast cancer for women and lung, colon, and stomach cancer for men.

The WHO stated in an earlier report that cancer in Syria is 3rd among the 10 main fatal illnesses, with cases expected to further rise amidst damaged hospitals left unavailable for use.

According to the report, around 25,000 cancer patients require treatment every year, including a staggering 2,500 below the age of 15 years suffering from leukemia and lymphoma.

Within the camps of Tal Alkarama in the Harem District north of Syria, Monaf Mohammad al-Saleh, 11, suffers from speech impairment, an amputation in his left leg, and deformed fingers, along with a hazardous lack of sensation.

Monaf was hit by rocket shrapnel from Russian air raids as he played outside his home in Sarha in eastern Hama. Doctors say his leg suffered from a bacterial infection that reached the bone and left dead tissue in its wake.

His father says, “We couldn’t find him treatment. In addition to the financial situation and lack of good hospitals, he hasn’t been able to receive the proper treatment yet. He needs to enter Turkey as soon as possible. Sadly, the closed border due to the Coronavirus is endangering his life, keeping in mind that the chances of him recovering and benefiting from his treatment lessens as time passes.”

After Syrian government forces entered the village of Sarha, Monaf’s family fled to camps in northern rural Idlib. Doctors were forced to amputate the infected leg after the boy’s condition deteriorated due to lack of proper health requirements. He later got an infection on his tongue from unknown causes.

The father recounts, “It became hard for him to speak and talk. He also lost sensation in his body and couldn’t feel heat or cold or fire.”

Weapons Residues

Among the reasons for the recent spike in cancer cases in Syria, Dr. Hind, a research oncologist at the Idlib province, lists three: there has been a spread of kidney infections and liver diseases that – when left untreated – can become precursors to cancer; poor food quality and the consumption of expired goods; as well as the drastic “loss of hospitals, medical equipment and personnel that impedes routine checkups and, thus, lowers chances for early detection and diagnosis.”

The rise in cancer rates was a foreseen consequence in liberated areas, however, where toxic chemicals, heavy weaponry, rampant destruction, and environmental pollution are widespread remnants of the war.

To that extent, Dr. Ayham al-Ahmad posits the higher cancers rates in liberated areas as a result of the heavy presence of toxic and oxidized weapons, as well as the overall lack of environmental hygiene and cleanliness in these areas – all of which encourage viral and bacterial infections that act as catalysts for the development of cancerous tumors.

 His eyes fill with tears as he says, “She has jaw cancer and as the tumor grows, her pain grows with it”

Moreover, the entirety of northwest Syria suffers a shortage of cancer treatment medications, compelling patients to make the journey south towards regime-controlled areas, where treatment is more available. With its gruesome roads, many checkpoints, and costly travel expenses, however, the lengthy trips are exhaustive to both the patients’ health and their pockets.

Faisal, 43, lives with his wife and nine children in a tent at one of the many makeshift camps sprung along the Syrian-Turkish border. Six months ago, he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor and has since not been able to get treated owing to the dilapidation of medical facilities in the Idlib province and the unfeasibility of obtaining medicine from Turkey after the shutdown of its borders.

Faisal outright refuses to go to Damascus, where he is adamant that regime forces detained two of his brothers for aiding the Syrian revolution. According to him, one of his brothers was murdered and the other disappeared not long after.

“The Turkish medical team refused to let her pass despite all our appeals, saying she is a non-emergency ‘cold case’… The delay in her treatment can lead to the growth and spread of the tumor, deteriorating her already worsening state.”

As his health deteriorated with the growth of the brain tumor, the imperative to find medication grew more urgent, and Faisal turned to charity-based pharmacies for help. Alas, to no avail.

The Turkish medical team refused to let her pass despite all our appeals, saying she is a non-emergency ‘cold case’… The delay in her treatment can lead to the growth and spread of the tumor, deteriorating her already worsening state

A doctor working at the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) office in the Turkish city of Gaziantep notes, “The SAMS center in Idlib is the only place offering treatment for breast cancer, lymphatic cancer and colon cancer in the entire province. The treatments are free and available to all, but due to the center’s lack of funding and the restrictions set on the import of certain drugs, about a third of our patients are forced to buy their medication from local drug stores run by the clinic.

Not everyone is able to procure their treatment, and the center isn’t able to treat everyone. We used to move more critical patients, like those suffering from leukemia or brain cancer, to Turkey for treatment, but that all halted with the coronavirus pandemic.”

Deteriorating Health Conditions

In the city of Ma’arrat Misrin north of Idlib, Ru’aa al-Ali, an 8-year-old brain tumor patient, hasn’t been able to enter Turkish territories for treatment despite best efforts, as Turkey continues to cut-off access to its border passes with Syria due to the ongoing pandemic.

Her mother says Ru’aa was diagnosed a year ago and underwent a 3-month-long treatment in Turkey. She returned to rural Idlib after her condition stabilized, however, “her state has worsened recently and she needs radiotherapy, which is unavailable here.”

The distraught mother goes on to say, “The Turkish medical team refused to let her pass despite all our appeals, saying she is a non-emergency ‘cold case’… The delay in her treatment can lead to the growth and spread of the tumor, deteriorating her already worsening state.”

Turkish authorities in the border crossing could not be reached for comment, while the head of a Turkish-run medical center in rural Aleppo declined to comment on the halt of medical transfers regarding both cancer and chronic disease patients.

With the continued closure of the border pass amidst the ongoing pandemic and the number of those suffering from chronic illnesses continuing to grow, the fate of more than 400 cancer patients denied access to treatment, remains pending.

This investigation was carried out under the supervision of the ‘Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism‎ (SIRAJ)’ and the support of the ‘International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)’, as well as the Facebook Journalism Project, published on Raseef22

The post With Bab Al Hawa Border Closed, Syrians Are Deprived of Cancer Treatment appeared first on SIRAJ.

In Lebanon, the presence of Syrian refugees has been part of the discourse of public influential figures. As investigative journalists, we were prompted to analyze this discourse. Over the course of 10 months of work, we have documented, filtered and analyzed thousands of Tweets to identify supporters of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and those who oppose taking them in.

During the period of our reporting, Lebanon witnessed numerous campaigns and advocacy calls, among which were those triumphing the Syrian cause, or advocating the conditions of refugees in Lebanon. For example, hundreds of Syrian and Lebanese activists have tweeted in the last two years under the hashtag  #عرسال_تستغيث in an attempt to send a distress message about the horrid living conditions refugees endure in camps.

This data-driven story revealed that more than half of the tweets included in the analysis sample rejected Syrian refugees. Male rejection was more pronounced than women, with 95% of male tweets rejecting refugees, compared to 5% of tweets by women

Influential Figures

Our team of journalists and technical team at InfoTimes collaborated with a team of editors from the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit (SIRAJ) to study and analyze the tweets of a group of Lebanese public figures from February 2011 to September 2019, where 101 individuals were selected according to their public presence and activity on Twitter, as well as their influence on the Lebanese street.

The data collection process from the social networking platform Twitter was done using algorithms specially designed for this process.Following the collection of Tweets by the figures under study, they were divided into three sectors according to their professions. The first included 41 figures working as journalists, opinion writers, and rights activists. The second sector comprised of 36 politicians, party members, government officials and statesmen. The last sector included 24 celebrities, mainly singers and actors.

Following the software algorithms, we examined and filtered approximately 238,000 tweets to extract tweets related to the subject of the Syrian asylum in Lebanon. A total of 1,454 tweets were written by 68 Lebanese of the total figures monitored in the search process.

Then we sorted the tweets and classified them into three main groups: group 1 has positive tweets – tweets that contained sympathy and support for the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Group 2 has negative tweets – tweets that included opposition, repatriation and hatred for the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and called for their return to their country. Group 3 was the neutral tweets – those tweets that did not contain words of sympathy and support nor words of hatred and hostility.

Flagrant Hatred

The analysis of tweets showed a conflicting view of the refugees, as 30% of the Lebanese figures supported the refugees, while 51% rejected them, which explains the emergence of voices calling for the return of Syrian refugees, describing the as “displaced”.

These percentages illustrate the officials’ position concerning Syrian refugees, and the apparent division of the Lebanese public on this matter. There was no apparent conflict of opinion or change of attitudes by any of the figures being researched. Even if sympathy emerged among one or two people who oppose the Syrian asylum in Lebanon, it was a manifestation of some humanity, but it does not rise to be a visible change in the general attitude of this character. Nevertheless, 19% of the public figures’ Tweets were neutral.

The analysis revealed high rejection of refugees,  where the list of negative Tweets amounted to 114. Some of these public figures are from the axis supporting the Syrian regime and some from the anti-Syrian axis, such as figures from the “Marada”, figures from the Future Movement, figures from the Lebanese Forces Party, figures from the current “Azm”, in addition to figures from The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), government officials, and MPs in the Lebanese parliament.

But the most prominent and obvious role in the rejection of refugees and prominent support for the Syrian regime, was played by the Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, leader of President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, who often called for the need to return the “displaced” Syrians to their country.

Sympathy and Support

On the other hand, there were those who supported the Syrian refugees and positively dealt with their situation, such as figures from the Progressive Socialist Party in Lebanon, figures from the Future Movement, media personnel  and human rights activist Nabil Halabi, Lebanese journalist Tony Boulos and journalist Rima Maktabi, celebrity Fadel Shaker, media personnel Dalal Moawad, and others.

Lebanese women were present in dealing with the situation of Syrian refugees on Twitter, and they had smaller portion of negative Tweets. Only 5% of 736 Tweets by women were negative. Women accounted for nearly a third of positive posts. Lebanese journalist Rima Maktabi was at the forefront of the most supportive of Syrian refugees throughout her Tweets for eight years.

Hatred in a Historical Context

In the search for the reasons that have created the rejection of Syrian presence in Lebanon, even before the Syrian protests and the outbreak of military actions, a historical factor related to the political relations between the two countries emerges, namely the length of the Syrian army’s presence in Lebanon during the period of the Lebanese civil war until 2005. This role was manifested in the exercise of absolute rule in Lebanon and the imposition of “trusteeship”, domination, and control. This presence was associated with abuses, repression and oppressive practices that restricted public freedom. This created a general aversion in Lebanon towards any Syrian, whose presence was described as an occupation.

In line with this sentiment towards the Syrian people in Lebanon, another factor related to the economic situation in Lebanon is highlighted. Some say that the Syrian workers in Lebanon reduce the job opportunities of the Lebanese and adds to the unemployment crisis, as pointed out by the Lebanese Minister of Labor Sajaan Azz in the London Arab newspaper, who said that “about one million Syrians compete with the Lebanese labor without controls, and that is a heavy burden on the Lebanese economy and on the opportunities available to the Lebanese labor force. “

The Battles Move from Twitter to the Ground

The hate speech that emerged through the tweets of some politicians and public figures against Syrian refugees in Lebanon, was not words written on social media, but translated into reality in many situations, where the levels of attack and harassment of refugees by local municipalities in some areas, as well as state agencies and authorities, were heightened, according to human rights defenders.

In an April 2018 Human Rights Watch report, it was stated that at least 13 municipalities in Lebanon had forcibly evicted at least 3,664 Syrian refugees from their homes and expelled them from municipalities, and that evictions by municipalities were discriminatory and illegal. The report also said that another 42,000 are at the same risk because of their “nationality or religion”.

Human Rights Watch reported that this operation resulted in refugees losing their income and property, and disrupted their children’s education, including those who had been absent from school for months and others who had completely stopped attending school.

But how can social media and Twitter’s rhetoric affect the fate of the nearly one million Syrians living in this country? Through this question and through data obtained after analyzing the Tweets, we wanted to talk to people on the Lebanese street to know more about their opinion on the issue of Syrian asylum in Lebanon. Opinions were divided between supporters of the idea of returning refugees to their country, and those who support their presence in Lebanon, but under certain conditions.

“The Syrian displacement crisis in Lebanon has turned into a social crisis with significant economic and other implications, and this requires the cooperation of several parties to find a solution, such as Syria and the United Nations,” said Elias Melki, secretary of the Lebanese Forces political formation body.

As such, Melki puts forward his party’s proposal to establish camps in the Syrian territories that are not affiliated with the Syrian regime or the opposition, but fall under international auspices until the political solution in Syria matures. He also stresses the need for the Syrian regime to cooperate to return the refugees to their land, “if it is keen to do so.”

Elian Saad, a young woman affiliated with the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), said “I encourage the return of displaced Syrians to safe areas in Syria for many reasons”.

On the security front, Saad sees Syrian asylum as a danger, especially in the camps that she considers “hotbeds of the terrorist cell”. She also encourages the cooperation of international organizations with the Syrian regime for the return of displaced persons, especially since many areas have become safe.

On the other hand, Sobhi Amhaz, a Lebanese journalist, objects to the term “safe return”, considering that the return must be voluntary in accordance with all international conventions, because the concept of safety is relative.”It is not enough that the region be safe, [it is different] for Syrian opposition activists, for example,” he says.

Amhaz believes that “there are Lebanese cultural legacies that consider anyone who is a foreigner to be an outsider to the Lebanese fabric.”

He also misconstrues the idea of “increasing unemployment due to Syrian asylum in Lebanon,” stressing the absence of clear policies in the Lebanese labor market before 2011, so there is no responsibility on the Syrians. On the contrary, he believes that the Lebanese state benefits from donations and money that is pumped into its treasury, which it receives in return for receiving refugees.

Mohammed Hassan, founder of the Access Center for Human Rights, commented on the results of the analysis, saying: “The aggression against foreigners is not new behavior, before the Syrian asylum in Lebanon, there was enslavement of foreign workers, especially Domestic workers who come to Lebanon in very difficult conditions from their home countries”, through the offices that bring in domestic workers, which falls under domestic law.

He added that the recent increasing hostility towards Syrian refugees was represented by speeches through social media and Lebanese media, which is the main reason for the increasing tension between the Lebanese and Syrian societies.

Hassan summarized the most prominent violations caused by hate speeches from Lebanese politicians and official media that violate local and international laws. This includes the decisions of the Lebanese municipalities to prevent the movement of refugees and forced them to work forced labor and pay monthly contributions for municipal services already funded by the government, as well as decisions of deportation “legalized” by the Lebanese General Security at Beirut airport, which violates the Convention under Article II, Article III of the Convention against Torture, And the Lebanese Constitution.

Report by: Mohammad Waked, Ammar Al-Khasawneh

Researchers: Abdul Rahman Al-Khader, Ahmad Rahal, Manar Abu Hassoun

Translation: Aya Nader

Edited by: Mohamed Zidan, Mohamed Bassiki

The post Analysis of Tweets Showcases Hatred Towards Syrian Refugees Among Lebanon’s Elite appeared first on SIRAJ.

Published on Daraj Media

Three years ago, Mohammed Abu Abbas, only 17 years old , from Idlib Governorate, found no difficulty to join Jund al-Aqsa, a hardline Islamist faction.

At that time, the faction was being active in the governorate and launching military operations along with other opposing factions, which fight against the Syrian regime’s army.

But that was before Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra, ended its military presence in the area last year.

Having engaged in fighting against other opposing factions, the remaining members of Jund al-Aqsa were transferred to the areas run by “Daesh” in the east. Continuing to work as a fighter, Abu Abbas, only 14 years old,  has defected from Jund al-Aqsa and joined Hay’etTahrir al-Sham, the most powerful military faction.

“I joined Hay’etTahrir al-Sham three years ago. First, I underwent an intensive course in Sharia and in military training, getting acquainted with the fundamental concepts of Islam, the basic military tasks, and the way in which battles against Al-Assad’s forces are fought. For almost a year, I had been an ordinary fighter in a battalion until the battalion commander was martyred. Then, being well-built, I have chosen from among the brethren to be the new battalion commander.”

After talking with the “child” soldier, Abu Abbas, it turns out that the religious motive has been the springboard for his involvement in the fighting. “Jihad is an obligation imposed on every Muslim,” he said. “We are being killed every day by artillery and aerial bombing. Of course, young men are joining their mujahideen brethren to defend their religion, their honor and their land. Under the leadership of Jund al-Aqsa, we received neither salary nor monetary aid, and we were earning money by selling spoils of war. However, the basic necessities of life, such as food and water, were secured in my residence in the battalion headquarter,” he added.

After the peaceful protests in Syria transformed into military conflict in 2011, the recruitment of children has become widespread in the north and whole of Syria, where the various military factions and the forces on the ground have been actively involved in recruiting children as soldiers for military operations.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that the children of Syria faced unprecedented suffering as a result of the escalation of violence in 2016, the worst year since the outbreak of the war in 2011. They are being recruited to “fight on the front lines of war”, to perform acts of “execution”, to “detonate suicide belts”, or to work as prison guards. More than 850 Syrian children, more than double compared with 2015, were recruited to fight in 2016.

Another type of child recruitment

The recruitment of children is not only limited to prompting them to fight on the front lines of battles, but also extends to making them fulfill works related to military manufacturing, night watching, manning military checkpoints and others, which constitutes a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such works are carried out only to receive material benefit, according to the view of  Hassan Al-Hamawi, 16 years old, who has been working for almost a year in a weapons factory in the western countryside of Aleppo.

In fact, the young fighter, Al-Hamawi , does not know the name of the faction for which he works.

Needing to earn a daily income after losing his brother during a raid on the area, he finds himself forced to do such a work as this in order to support his family.

“My job is to help everyone in the factory, which produces its own improvised mortars. I go to the work every day at 7 am and come back at 4 pm, and the daily hours of the work include some rest periods. However, sometimes there is pressure of work, so we neither rest nor eat,” he says.

Al-Hamwi gets an amount of  50,000 pounds ($ 100) each month. In addition, he receives  a food parcel, “which may not be delivered monthly,” according to him.

Lucky fighter

Compared with his peers who fight on the front lines, Al-Hamwi feels comfortable and is considered fortunate in having such a job, which does not endanger his life, because “the factory does not contain explosive materials, and his work is limited to manufacturing molds”. He says, “I’m too young to join battle, but when I grow up, I will certainly establish my identity as a first-rate fighter.”

At the same factory, Al-Hamwi shares the work with another 10-year-old boy, whose task is to help the “adults”, to prepare tea and coffee for the workers, and to clean and sweep the floor.

Phenomenon needs to be fought by Awareness-raising initiatives

The Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement and other factions, the most notable of which is Hay’etTahrir al-Sham, have run Idleb governorate since 2015. The Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement has set out conditions for gaining its membership, identifying the age group.

Omar Khattab, a military spokesman for the Movement, says: “Undoubtedly, we categorically refuse to let our sons who lack mental and physical ability get involved in battles. We refrain from making our children fuel for the ongoing war. But, We seek to create a generation capable of sustaining the revolution, a generation who is educated and is on the right track.”

He denied that the Movement had recruited persons, whether young or old. “Actually, the basis and goal of the Movement as well as the clarity of its purpose and its actual achievements on the ground are what have prompted many to join it,” he said.

Although organizations and supervisory bodies confirm that the Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement has recruited children, the military spokesman for it emphasizes that “the talk about the recruitment of children by the Movement is devoid of truth and is unsupported by any evidence.”

When asked about the measures taken in relation to children asking to join the Movement’s ranks, he explained “There are so many other things that can save children’s lives and keep them away from the risk as much as possible.Such children can undergo religious and medical courses as well as joining educational centers.”

Increasing numbers of recruits

Al-Ahmad believes that ”the list of shame”, published by The UN in a detailed annual report on the phenomenon of recruiting children, has included  factions or other parties that recruit children around the world.

According to Al-Ahmad, the United Nations has documented the involvement of several factions in recruiting children in Syria. Such factions include: the Free Army; the Islamic factions, such as Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Ahrar al-Sham; unknown armed groups; the regime’s militias; and the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit.

In general, all parties and warring factions have disproportionately involved in recruiting children.

Usually, the recruitment age is between the ages of 15 and 18.

However, there are cases of recruiting children under the age of 15; Al-Ahmad confirms that the rate of such cases is estimated at 15 to 30 percent of all the children recruited in Syria. While The factions that recruit children present “flimsy arguments” including that children aged 15 are appropriate to participate in war, Al-Ahmad says, “Such arguments are not accepted”.

Portraying children as heroes

There are many reasons that prompt children to enroll in military service. The common reasons are the poor living conditions; the military factions’ propaganda activities, suchpropaganda activities are also conducted by “Daesh”; and the temptations by the armed groups which include paying monthly salaries and giving aid to the recruited and their families.

In addition, children have been considerably induced by armed groups to accept military recruitment. The armed groups portray their acts as acts of heroism, so children believe that they would become heroes when joining them, according to Jalal Ahmed, the director of Justice For Life Organization.

This phenomenon is on the increase in the north of Syria.

Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers in armed conflicts constitute a war crime, according to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court.

Human rights lawyers and activists previously confirmed the recruitment of 500 children in Idlib after  the campaign of “Enfer”, Go Forth, in 2016;the campaign was conducted by both the “Center For Jihad Advocacy”, affiliated to Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Saudi preacher Abdullah al-Muhaysini, targeting children from various camps and districts in Idlib.

• This investigative report is prepared by the support and supervision of the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ).

The post “Money” and “propaganda activities” attract children to “Al-Nusra” and its affiliates in Idlib appeared first on SIRAJ.

By Ali Alibrahim and Ahmed Haj Hamdo

Published on Daraj Media

wiping away his tears of grief, Mohammed, a doctor in his forties at Dar al-Rahma Medical Center in the Eastern Ghouta area of rural Damascus, gathers the leftovermedicines from his desk inside a small bag.The doctor said: “The hundreds of cancer patients, whose health records have been stacked up in a wooden cabinet, have been waitig months for “salvation”.

Just now, Samer, a child who has not yet completedthe age of 5, accompanied by his grandmother, a 50-year-old woman, arrived to the Center, which is the only medical center specialized in treating cancer patients. He is among the 559 cancer patientsin the Ghouta,according to the center’s statistics. He is awaiting for doses of treatment, which have completely run outduring the siege imposed by the Syrian regime forces.

The grandmothersays, “his fatherhas beenimprisoned for about three years, while his mother has migrated to Egypt.So, he is left with me to look after.”

She adds thatSamer”was complained of pain in his stomach and feet.While providing medical examination for him, the doctorsdiscovered hehad blood cancer. we started to treat himin the Dar al-Rahma.But today, he is without treatment because doses are not available.”

Death threatens everyone

The siege on the eastern Ghouta, which includes dozens of villages, towns and cities and ispopulated by about 400,000 civilians, has imposed a dire situation on cancer patients due to the totallack of medical treatment and the destruction of the entire healthcare system.

First, Ghouta was partially besieged in October 2012.Then, almost a year later, in 2013, the siege wastightenedafter a military shift on the ground for the sake of the Syrian regime forces, which advanced from many axes.Consequently, the lives of the hundreds of injured people were in danger because of the interruption to the supply of medicines, amid the appeals bythemedical and relief arms of the United Nations, based in Damascus, to bring in the convoys of relief and medical assistance.

Again, in February 2017, the Syrian regime forces and allied militia carried out an assault on the Al-Qaboun and Tishreen districts northeast of the capital Damascus , taking control of all the tunnels used to smuggle medicines and necessities from the regime-controlled areas to besieged areas.As a result,theeastern Ghouta has been completely blockaded without any outlet and cut off from the world for eight months.

This prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to express its “deep concern over the deteriorating health situation in theeastern Ghouta area of rural Damascus, and it called for immediately allowing life-saving aid.

The WHO confirmed that the three government hospitals in addition to 17 public healthcare facilities in the eastern Ghouta are not working, and thatpeople cannot reach them, pointing out that its health partners have allocated additional suppliesthat are readyto be delivered once the access is granted. But, the WHO has not been given permission for access.

“Within two weeks, all medicines will have beenrun out.If the siege continues, there will be a massacre committed against the sick,” said Dr. Wisam al-Ruz, a director of Dar al-Rahma Center.

Impossible dream of treatment

 The lack of medical treatment has not only affected children, but also the elderly, women and the pregnant. Themedical treatment is now a dream as people say.

Sara, a woman in her 20s from Douma, has received cancer treatment for about a year inthe same center where Samer is treated. She reached a late stage of treatment and began to recover.But now, her health situation is worsening because she is deprived of medical doses which have run out, according to a specialist doctor at Dar al-Rahma Medical Center.

Sarah knows that the fate of cancer patients is “inevitable death”.”We are cancer patients.Although we are sure that our fate is inevitable death, we arehoping of living for a few more years, but even this hope has fadedas the siege continues,” she said calmly.

Sarah is among 559 cancer patients who are waiting for medicine,while their records remain stacked up inside Dar al-Rahma.Now, the Center can provide doses to only 3% of patients and their records are waiting a decision from the medical staff of the Center,according to the director of Dar al-Rahma, Wisam al-Roz.

Therefore, the Syrian Human Rights Network considered that the siege of al-Ghouta is a form of collective punishment. The network’s director, Fadel Abdel Ghani, emphasized that most of death cases caused by the siege were of vulnerable groups such as infants, the elderly, the sick, and the injuredin repeated bombardments, and there are no sufficient medicines to treat them. In addition, the siegehas reflected badly on chronic patients, especiallythose with cancer.

Escaping for treatment

 over the last three months, 20 cancer patients have died in Dar al-Rahma Center, approximately every five days one of thecancer patientsdies.Such patients, including four children under 10 months old,were receiving medical treatment. But the Center is no longer able to renew its stock of anti-cancer drugs.

The Center has been rationing its limited stock of medicines because ofthe shortage of supplies. While, Prior to the siege, the Center managed to cure 37% of the cancer patients, and only 10% of them dieduntil the end of 2016, according to the director of the Center.

Because of the siege, the Center has been forced to change the course of treatment by reducing the amounts of doses given to some patients. As a result, those patients, who were recovering, have relapsed, according to a specialized nurse at the Center.

The treatment of cancer is divided into two types, the first through Chemotherapyand the second through radiotherapy. According to the director of Dar Al-Rahma Center, patientswere undergoingradiotherapy or chemotherapy or both, depending on the progression of cancer disease.

The medical staff of the Center confirmed to the author of this investigative report that patientswho needradiotherapy were going to Damascus through tunnels for treatment, which is only available atAl-NawawiHospital in the capitalDamascus, while we secured doses from the capital in different way to patients who are in need ofchemotherapy.

“But today after the closure of the tunnels, there is no possibility of providing either of the treatments, and the Center is in danger of running out of steam not for financial reasons but because there are no drugs to treat patients.”

Unavailable Drugs

 What hinders access to medicines, which are completely unavailable, is because the production and supply is controlled by the Syrian Ministry of Health, which has prevented medicinesfrom enteringthe Ghouta and not allowed the patients to be evacuated to the hospitals of the capital Damascus, according to a number of patients and relief workers in the ​​Harasta and Douma areas in the eastern Ghouta.

“Since the closure of the tunnels, which served as anunderground lifeline for half a million people, the cancer drugs have been cut off, andtoday, ifdrugsare available, their prices are very high and patients cannot afford them at all,” said BakrAbd al-Salam, a field doctor. “Some medicines cost more than a thousand dollars, which is anastronomical sum at the current timein the eastern Ghouta, while they don’t exceed a few pounds in value, in Damascus,” he added.

Treatment in Idlib

When asked by the journalists about the steps to stop the “disaster” threatening the lives of hundreds of patients, the World Health Organization said it has formally requested the Syrian government to evacuate patients from the eastern Ghouta in order to be treatedeither in Damascus or Idlib, according to their own will.

The WHO has been submitting to the Security Council a monthly report on the constraints and difficulties confronting the efforts to provide health and humanitarian assistance to the besiegedand hard-to-reach areas of Syria.

According to organization’s statements that the author of this investigative reportread, 7 tons of medical supplies, medicines and equipment were sent through inter-agency relief convoys to the health facilities in the besieged area, to which the last convoy got through on October 30, 2017.

Mr. Jan Egeland, UN humanitarian adviser for Syria,said:”400,000 People are trapped in the eastern Ghouta near Damascus, facing’completecatastrophe’, and hundreds of people need urgent medical evacuation. Deprived of being evacuated, Seven patients have died, and 28 patients, including 18 children, areon the brink of death. ”

Regarding cancer patients,who live under the threat of death with a tiny bit of hope, they have been included in the list submitted to the Syrian government and will be evacuated to receive appropriate treatment, according to the WHO.

Snowballing crisis

Mohammed Ali Asida, the most recent victim of the siege, died on Nov.4, 2017 in the town of Hazza in the eastern Ghouta, after his health situationdeteriorated due to bowel cancer and the lack of essential medicines.

Supposedly, the residents of the eastern Ghouta andof all the besieged cities in Syria should have been spared from this situation, as three months ago a deal, coming into effect on the 18th of last August, was agreed among the guarantor states of Iran, Russia and Turkey to set up de-escalation zones in the Eastern Ghouta and three other areas.

The section 7 of the agreement provides that ”the both partiesshall immediately take all necessary measures to imrove the humanitarian situation in the de-escalation zones;and to that end, the both parties shall ensure and facilitate the immediate entry of relief convoys of food and medicinesas well as other humanitarian needs through two crossing points controlled by the first party, the regime, in EinTarma and Harasta. This will be accompanied by the evacuation of patients to Syrian or Russian hospitals, according to their own will.”

Therefore, the continuing siege constitutes a violation of one of the main provisions of the agreement on “de-escalation zones”and a “clear breach” of it, which should have alleviated the suffering of civilians, primarily the sick.

“The Syrian regime and Russia have not complied with the agreement, and there is no seriousness by them to abide by suchprovisions, the most important of which is the opening of humanitarian corridors,” said WaelAllwan, a spokesman for Failak Al-rahman,an opposing faction in the Eastern Ghouta.

“The agreement is not very different from the previous ones, whichcompletely havenot been translated into reality,” he added.

On the other hand, It has not been possible to contact an official Syrian body to express its opinion on this subject.

Complex bureaucratic approval process

As well as the breaching of the agreement on de-escalation zones, the siege imposed on the patients in the eastern Ghouta constitutes a violation of Security Council resolution 2254, which in article 12 states that “the parties shall immediately provide humanitarian agencies with rapid, safe and unhindered access to all parts of Syria through the most direct routes, and that the parties shall immediately allowhumanitarian assistance for all those in need, especially in the besieged and inaccessible areas  “.

But, the Syrian regime, which is supposed to allow access for humanitarian agencies, has not implemented that article, and neither hasthe International Syria Support Group, which should have used their influence as superpowers on the besieging party to achieve this aim.

Thestate of thissiege, whichis not the first of its kind in Syria, resemblestheprevious tragicones thatresulted in the deaths of civilians in Zabadani, Madaya, Darayya and other areas.This happens because of many reasons, the most notable of which is thatthe Syrian regime controls humanitarian convoys. That is what Human Rights Watchconfirmedin its annual report published at the end of 2016. The reportindicated thatthe Syrian government has continued to require relief agencies to obtain permission throughcomplex bureaucratic approval before accessingsuch areas.

Today, the UN teams in Damascus have no choice butto appeal for help in overcoming obstacles and to issue reports documenting the most terrible scenes of the siege and the daily deathsof patients and civilians,in the absence of the effective pressure mechanisms, which have been set out in relevant United Nations resolutions.Meanwhile, 350,000 people await their unknown fate in the eastern Ghouta and 559 patients await looming death.

• This investigative report is prepared by the support and supervision of the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ).

The post “Looming death in Ghouta” appeared first on SIRAJ.