Aleppo-origin carpenter Mahmoud al Ibrahim Nasiri says, “There are people who stay near Turkish border; but they were in need of electricity, water, food. If it goes on like this, they will have to migrate due to insufficiency of food and misery”.
ORSAM: Could you tell us about yourself?
Mahmoud al Ibrahim Nasiri: I lived in Aziziye neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria. I am 25 years old, and I am a carpenter. I lived with my old parents and four sisters.
ORSAM: Could you tell us about your life in Syria before the civil war, your experiences during the civil war and what brought you to Turkey?
Mahmoud al Ibrahim Nasiri: I could not live in Aleppo anymore, my mother is housewife, and my father is retired. My father's retirement pension is 20 thousand SYP (it equals to some 400 TL). My father opened a shop for me, and I had just finished my military service. I made armchair, couch, office equipments in the carpenter shop. I had a good job and income, my sisters did not work. Like other people in Aleppo, my shop and the neighborhood were also attacked during the bombardment, and our home was also partially destroyed. In addition to hunger and misery, diseases also broke out.
As a 7-member family, we rented a house in Reyhanlı district of Hatay. I found a job related to my job. My daily wage is 20 TL, and we have to pay 600 TL for the rent. The monthly expense of a 7-member family is at least 1500 TL, and I borrowed money from some Syrian fellows. Currently, we cannot receive my father's retirement pension as my father cannot go to Syria. Going back to Aleppo is the same with committing suicide. There are agricultural labors in Reyhanlı, women go to work in fields but my family members have never worked in the field. It is necessary to be used to work in the field to be able to work in the open in winter from 07.00 until 15.30, but we had to. They went to work but they could hardly make through the day, and at the end of the day, they were told not to come to work the following day as they were not experienced. It is January now, and we still do not have heater at home, or sufficient number of blankets. We try to get warm through a small bottled gas in a cold apartment.
I went to Aleppo without letting my family know, and I saw that there was nothing left at home neither any neighbor around. The neighborhood was completely abandoned, everywhere stank, there was a blackout, no water, namely there is nothing else other than smoke and wreckages. Syria is totally destroyed, and Aleppo is unrecognizable. Troops, tanks and gangs of thieves are all around, there is no family left and trade life has come to a deadlock.
I stopped by a village in Idlib province, and I saw that those who stayed near Turkish border had problems for not having an access to electricity, water, flour and bread. Nobody can find vegetable or fruit anymore, everybody has tea, sugar, food for breakfast in their stock, but they can hardly make it through this season. If it goes on like this, they will have to migrate due to insufficiency of food and misery.
* This interview was made by Feyyat Özyazar in Reyhanlı district of Hatay on 15 January 2013.
