Syrian refugees hopeful about returning home, but agencies warn against rushing back
Every night for half of her life, Ghena Ali Mostafa has spent the moments before sleep envisioning what she’d do first if she ever had the chance to step back into the Syrian home she fled as a girl. She imagined herself laying down and pressing her lips to the ground, and melting into a hug from the grandmother she left behind. She thought about her father, who disappeared when she was 13.
It was all beyond the realm of possibility as her teenage years and early 20s ticked past. Then, after rebels toppled the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, those thoughts of home snapped back within reach.
“Today I have a country that I can go back and build. Today I do not need to be a refugee anymore,” Mostafa said in an interview from her apartment in Toronto on Monday.
“Today I have a home and this home is waiting for me.”
Ghena Ali Mostafa, 24, said she has dreamed of returning to Syria ever since she fled the country as a child. With the fall of the Al-Assad regime, she said she finally feels she has a chance to travel back.
Mostafa, 24, is one of an untold number of Syrian refugees contemplating travelling back to Syria after the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday ended 13 years of civil war and decades more under his family’s violent dictatorship.
Elated families say they’re revelling in their first tangible hope of going home, but the leader of a Canadian support foundation says they’re also watching closely to see where the country’s political, economic and humanitarian situation goes from here.
‘I am beyond happy’
Mostafa left Syria with her sister and mother for their own safety after her father, who had rebelled against the regime, was “forcefully disappeared” along with thousands of other government opponents in 2013. The three women lived as refugees in Turkey and Jordan before moving to Canada in 2018.
They are still doing “everything” to find out what happened to her father and still have family in Syria. Mostafa phoned them this weekend and heard them speak freely, without fear, for the first time since she left.
“I never thought I will witness this moment in my 20s. I thought maybe my kids or maybe my grandkids will witness this moment. But for me to witness this moment, for me to have a home that I can go to, for me to have a hope that I could be reunited with my dad,” she said, visibly shaking.
“I am beyond happy and I am beyond overwhelmed.”
More than six million Syrians became refugees during a decade of civil war, according to the United Nations. More than 44,000 of those people have landed in Canada since November 2015.
The rebel offensive that ultimately drove Assad from power on Sunday has prompted scores of people to start making their way back, crowding some border crossings with neighbouring countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Marwa Khobieh, executive director of the Syrian Canadian Foundation, said she believes many families in Canada will be anxiously thinking about returning to see their loved ones and begin rebuilding the country — but said it’s not yet safe enough to consider a permanent move.
“I think most of them would like to visit. In terms of moving? Not yet, because Syria is not stable yet and everyone still has a lot of concerns about the future and what unfolds,” said Khobieh, an activist who hasn’t been back to Syria since leaving for her own safety in 2012.
Rebuilding the nation will be a massive task. Cities have been flattened, the countryside has been depopulated, the economy has been wiped out by international sanctions and millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of the modern day.
Many refugees won’t have physical homes left in Syria.
Long lines formed in Hatay, Turkey, on Monday as hundreds of people waited to get into Syria after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted by a coalition of Islamist rebel groups.
Khobieh said they are resilient, but will need support from the international and humanitarian community to rebuild the infrastructure and heal from the collective trauma.
The UN agency mandated to provide international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees, UNHCR, conducted a survey in 2023 to see how many refugees might want to go back to Syria. It found 56 per cent had hopes to return one day, but only 1.1 per cent planned on doing so within the next year.
Before Assad was overthrown, UNHCR had maintained for years that Syria was unsafe and said it would not facilitate mass returns for refugees unless key protection conditions are in place. A statement Tuesday said refugees must not be forced back prematurely.
“They are considering how safe Syria will be and how far their rights will be respected before they can make an informed voluntary decision to return home. They must be given the space to do so without any pressure,” said UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo.
The 1951 Refugee Convention said refugees no longer needs protection when the circumstances that caused the person to become a refugee “have ceased to exist,” but that change needs to be “fundamental and durable.”
Human Rights Watch, which has also warned repeatedly in the past that Syria is not safe for returns, issued a statement Monday saying the dictatorship’s collapse represents a seismic change.
“The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government offers Syrians an unprecedented opportunity to chart a new future built on justice, accountability, and respect for human rights,” wrote Lama Fakih, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
‘We are all waiting to see what happens next’
Syria’s new interim leader, Mohammed Al-Bashir, announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who brought down Assad. Earlier in the day, banks in the Syrian capital reopened for the first time.
Like Mostafa, Khadija Alsaeid is adamant she’ll go back to the country she left when she was nine.
“As much as I love Canada, as much as I love the Rocky Mountains — they’re my favourite place to be in — I would love to go back one day. It’s my city back there. It’s my country,” Alsaeid, 18, said at a celebratory rally in Calgary on Sunday.
Amir Fattal is also eager to go back, but keeping an eye on the government transition. He fled Aleppo in 2016 and now lives in Oakville, Ont. with his wife and children.
“We are all waiting to see what happens next and who’s going to lead the country, but for sure, I’m ready to add anything I can do to my country,” he told CBC News Network.
Amir Fattal, who came to Canada from Aleppo in 2016, said he’s watching the aftermath of President Bashar Al-Assad’s fall very closely to see how it might shape his plans to return home.
Mostafa, too, knows there will be factors to worry about before she can travel back safely. But for now, she’s soaking up the kind of hope she’s hasn’t known in the entirety of her adult life.
“I am terrified of what’s coming next. But I know that Syria is free and my dad is happy and will be happy with us,” she said.
“Me, my kids, Syrians … we are going to celebrate this day forever.”
Published at Sat, 07 Dec 2024 15:44:10 +0000
Amid New Delhi’s choking smog, doctors are on alert for signs of mental distress caused by pollution
Jai Dhar looks through the window of his New Delhi house and sees the thick smog that has engulfed the city. With his severe allergies and asthma, the pollution makes it difficult for him to breathe. It also leaves him feeling gloomy.
“The whole city has suddenly changed. It looks like a ghost city,” the 52-year-old said.
When temperatures started to drop in mid-November, the air quality index (AQI) in India’s capital city moved into the severe category. According to the World Health Organization, an AQI above 300 is considered hazardous. In the two weeks starting Nov. 13, New Delhi’s average AQI was 492.
Ranked as one of the most polluted cities in the world, New Delhi’s 20 million residents have experienced increases in respiratory illnesses and other issues like allergic rhinitis, headaches and skin issues.
Now the effect of air pollution on mental health is also emerging as a cause for concern, experts say.
Describing himself as a “victim of air pollution,” Dhar said he constantly has to use a nebulizer — a small machine that delivers medicine in a mist — which triggers his health anxiety and affects his day-to-day life.
Winter, with its worsening air quality, leaves him feeling depressed and helpless and he doesn’t even enjoy the Hindu festival of Diwali anymore. The celebration often takes place just before temperatures drop and the bursting of firecrackers contributes to the deteriorating air quality.
“The air pollution makes everything worse.”
Physical, mental health treated at new clinic
At the city’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, a pollution clinic — the first of its kind in Delhi — opened in October 2023. In addition to doctors dealing with respiratory, skin and eye issues, the clinic also has psychiatrists, a decision sparked by growing evidence linking air pollution on mental health.
“The idea was to bring all the concerned specialists, including mental health, under one roof and make it easy for patients to seek help,” said Dr. Amit Suri, head of the clinic.
On Dec. 5, Delhi was allowed to relax the strict emergency restrictions put in place on Nov. 18 to tackle rising air pollution. Some of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) Stage 4 measures included shutting schools and colleges and halting non-essential construction.
The clinic’s senior resident psychiatrist, Priyanka, who goes by her first name only, says mental health issues mostly affect children and elderly people but said all ages can experience changes to mental well-being as a result of their physiological reactions to pollution.
Fine particulate matter in the air, often called PM2.5, can cross the blood-brain barrier causing inflammation, and changing the brain’s chemical reaction, she said. PM2.5 refers to particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter. The width of a human hair is around 75 microns.
In children, pollution has been linked to impaired neurodevelopmental growth, impacting abilities like memory, learning and speaking. They can be left feeling dizzy and sad and might experience difficulties coping with their studies, she said.
In the elderly, pollution affects their cognitive decline, which results in forgetting and loneliness, she said.
Priyanka said there is a lack of awareness about mental health issues in India, as well as a social stigma that prevents people from seeking professional help.
“The people who are already facing mental health issues are more vulnerable to pollution,” she added. “It can exacerbate their stress and anxiety and can lead to depression.”
New research
Uttara Balakrishnan is a senior research economist at the Virginia-based American Institute for Research whose work often looks at specific situations in developing countries.
In 2021, Balakrishnan was lead author of a study about the mental health impact of air pollution in India. It found that air pollution exposure in a specific calendar year saw significantly worsened mental health in the following year.
“It was an understudied topic, and we wanted to fill in the causal link, not just correlation, between air pollution and mental health,” said Balakrishnan, who did part of her schooling at the University of Delhi.
Balakrishnan said the team’s approach looked at variables that can affect air pollution exposure, like where people live, their working conditions, and their physical health.
“Mental health is also correlated with poverty and income,” she said. “Any developing country — like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — would have high levels of mental health issues because poor mental health results in lower labour force participation and higher health-care utilization and could perpetuate poverty.”
In 2023, Cambridge University Press published a review that assessed existing research on air pollution and mental health, and suggested some priorities for future studies.
“When it comes to the correlation between mental health and air pollution, the scope of such studies is limited,” said Dr. Pallavi Rajhans, a Delhi-based psychiatrist who was not part of the review. “With air pollution becoming a major concern, more research should be conducted in this area.”
Mental health concerns were also identified in a Delhi government report about air pollution that was submitted in April to the National Green Tribunal, India’s environmental court. According to news reports, the government advised measures like being active or talking to a therapist to combat feelings of sadness, cognitive difficulties and a reduced ability to cope with life’s challenges.
‘I don’t know what the future looks like’
Aparna Aggarwal is dismayed about the state of affairs in the city.
For weeks, her two children, six-year-old Avni, and Avir, 4, had difficulty breathing and needed to use the nebulizer every day. They’ve been irritable with aggressive behaviour and mood swings.
She feels “helpless and agitated.”
Before schools were closed down in mid-November by GRAP 4 restrictions, her son’s teacher told her Avir had complained of being sad and unhappy but didn’t know why.
Deteriorating air quality meant they couldn’t go outside on the balcony or to the park, she said. “They have been complaining of constant headaches. Most of the time they are inside, and they feel constrained.”
After weeks of virtual classes, missing their friends and limited outdoor activity, the air quality has improved and many restrictions have lifted. But it’s “a temporary relief,” Aggarwal said.
“Seeing this air pollution slowly killing my children, I don’t know what the future looks like.”
Published at Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000