What remains of a street in Aleppo, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
GAZIANTEP, Turkey, Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

The woman who walked into the Islamic Front (IF) media office near the Turkish border was on the verge of fainting under the hot Syrian sun, but all she cared about was her infant son.

With over half of the country’s population displaced, she was just one of the parents among the more than three million UN-registered Syrian refugees grappling with how to keep their children safe and healthy while dealing with the innumerable dangers inherent in war zones, refugee camps and statelessness.

When IPS met the young woman in early August, she was living in the nearby Bab Al-Salama camp in northern Syria after having been displaced from an area of heavy fighting.Over 200,000 Syrians are living outside the camps in Gaziantep and rent prices have roughly tripled since the massive influx of refugees starting. Protests broke out in mid-August against their presence, and they are increasingly being targeted by violence.

The infant was only a few weeks old and needed to be breastfed, but there was nowhere out of the sight of men. And so, wearing a stifling niqab, she asked to use the room that now serves to ‘register’ foreign journalists crossing the border.

The room afforded some shade and privacy in which to breastfeed and, once the twenty-two-year-old former fighter in charge of the office had stepped out, she started feeding her child.

As she blew gently his sweaty forehead, the woman told IPS that she had kidney problems and could not sit – she could only lie down or stand up. She said that she was also having problems accessing medical care, for both herself and her feverish son. And even if the black abaya covering her body and the niqab over her face were hot, ‘’it’s better to use them,’’ she said, ‘’it’s war”.

The area around the Bab Al-Salama camp just across the border from the Turkish town of Kilis has been bombed several times, including a car bomb in May that killed dozens.

On the other side of the border, the camps that the Turkish government has set up for the over 800,000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations are said to be able to accommodate fewer than 300,000 of them.

In formal and informal refugee camps throughout the world, women are notoriously at risk of sexual crimes. Alongside economic issues, many parents on both sides of the border cite this as a reason to marry off their daughters earlier, in the attempt to ‘’protect their honour’’ and find someone to provide for them.

The children resulting from these unions are almost always unable to be registered and are thus stateless, joining the ranks of the many Syrian Kurds and others denied citizenship under Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

Mohamed was an officer in the Syrian regime’s army. From a fairly large tribe in Idlib, his family was targeted by the regime once the conflict began and he has fought with different Free Syrian Army brigades over the past few years.

Soon after a number of women were reportedly raped by ’shabiha’ in his area, he moved his young wife, mother and sisters across the border. He now crosses illegally into Turkey to see them when not fighting.

Street scene in rebel-held Aleppo, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

Mohamed is seeking ways to reach Europe. When IPS first met him in autumn of 2013, he had no intention of leaving. However, since then, his first son has been born, stateless.  The Syrian regime did not issue passports to officers in order to prevent them from defecting even prior to the 2011 uprising, and none of his family possesses one.

As a professional soldier without a salary and with no moderate rebel groups providing adequate wages to support a family, as well as no desire to join extremist groups – many of which would pay better – he feels does not know how else he can provide for his family.

‘’There’ s no future here,’’ he said.

On the Turkish side of the border, Ahmad – originally from Aleppo, Syria’s industrial capital – says he does not want to leave the region.

“I once asked my wife what country in the world she would go to if she could, and she answered ‘Syria’,’’ he told IPS proudly.

However, he added that he had stopped going backwards and forwards as a fixer and media activist as the day approached for his wife to give birth and the situation in Aleppo worsened.

When children approached a table as IPS was having tea with him in a Turkish border town, he somewhat gruffly told a little girl begging that she should ‘’work, even if that means selling packets of tissues on the streets.’’

‘’They have to learn to work and not just ask for money. Turks are starting to get angry that we are here,’’ he said.

Over 200,000 Syrians are living outside the camps in Gaziantep and rent prices have roughly tripled since the massive influx of refugees starting. Protests broke out in mid-August against their presence, and they are increasingly being targeted by violence.

Meanwhile, some attempts are being made to raise money for schools inside Syria that would be virtual ‘bunkers’, as Assad’s regime continues to target both schools and medical facilities.

In rebel-held Aleppo, IPS stayed with a Syrian family for a number of days in August as the regime barrel bombing campaign continued and as the danger of an impending siege by government forces or a takeover by the extremist Islamic State (IS) became more likely.

The eldest of the family’s four girls – only eight-years-old – had recently been hit by a sniper’s bullet while crossing the road to one of the few schools still functioning. Although it was healing, the exit wound will leave a very ugly scar on her arm.

Whenever the bombs fell during the night, the occupants of the room would move about restlessly, while the eight-year-old was always already awake, staring into the dark, utterly motionless.

Her father was adamant, however, that – come what may – the family would not leave.

In the late afternoon, little boys could be seen playing outside in the street with scant protection from snipers, only the nylon tarp of a former UNHCR tent hung across the street in an attempt to shield them. Large gaping holes marked the buildings, or what was left of them, in the street around them.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Colombia will be removed from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “blacklist” next year. In exchange, the government of Juan Manuel Santos facilitated a visit to the country by a delegation from the Commission.

For 12 years in a row, war-torn Colombia has been included in Chapter IV of the IACHR’s Annual Report, which singles out those countries with the most worrisome human rights situations. In 2012 the so-called blacklist included Colombia, Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela.

Colombia will now be the focus of a lengthier report, containing recommendations. In 2014, the IACHR will verify compliance with the recommendations. If Colombia has failed to comply, it could once again be included in Chapter IV in 2015.

But “the fact that a country report is being drawn up, rather than a country being included or not in Chapter IV, does not imply an improvement in human rights,” IACHR commissioner Felipe González said Friday Dec. 7 in Bogotá.

In fact the five IACHR commissioners who visited Colombia Dec. 3-7 observed “a serious humanitarian crisis” among those displaced from their homes by the civil war, who are “disproportionately” indigenous and black. It also documented threats faced by activists and homosexuals.

According to the IACHR’s preliminary observations from its in situ visit, between 8.6 and 11.2 percent of Colombia’s 47 million people have been forced to flee their homes by the internal armed conflict.

The rate at which people were displaced increased 63 percent in 2012, especially in the western and southern parts of the country, the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a prominent local human rights group, reported.

Colombians are fleeing fighting and death threats. But lately, the number of families leaving their homes to prevent the two main guerrilla groups – the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) – from recruiting their children has risen.

In addition, displaced persons in the southwestern department or province of Cauca told the IACHR that the authorities do not recognise them as victims because they were displaced by far-right groups that continued to be active after the demobilisation of the paramilitaries.

The commissioners visited Bogotá and the cities of Quibdó, Medellín and Popayán – the capitals, respectively, of the departments of the Chocó and Antioquia, in the northwest, and of Cauca.

González said they found “two different realities” in Colombia: while there are “sound institutions” in Bogotá, in the interior of the country “the state faces major obstacles to enforce the law and implement existing programmes,” due to “corruption at a local level, and a low level of political and social development.”

This is “especially seen in rural areas and with respect to certain population groups,” including blacks, who according to the IACHR, suffer “direct and indirect discrimination.”

González visited Popayán, the city that receives the largest number of displaced persons, in proportion to its population.

“We met with internally displaced persons, indigenous communities, women’s organisations, senior military officers, the governor, the ombudsman and the office of the public prosecutor. We observed a very complex situation. From the women, we received some specific complaints. But in general, they provided us with information that gave us an overview of the situation there,” the Chilean commissioner added.

The IACHR referred to “alarming information” on sexual violence against women by armed groups. Although according to the authorities, only one legal complaint has been filed, the regional ombudsman’s office found that cases were severely under-reported, especially when the perpetrators were members of the military.

“We told the military commanders about all of these reports we have been receiving,” González said. “We are going to remain in contact with them, while drafting our report.”

Many communities in Cauca are caught in the crossfire between government troops and the FARC, although the situation is changing now that peace talks have begun in Havana and the rebel group has declared a unilateral ceasefire.

Indigenous people in Colombia “are very worried about not being taken into account, or only in a marginal manner, and without meaningful participation in the negotiations,” said González, referring to the peace talks between the FARC and the Santos administration.

They believe that “eventually, part of the agreement could be that the FARC could maintain some reserves that are situated in indigenous territories.

“Of course, the IACHR encourages peace processes. But they have to be participative in nature, and they cannot be carried out at the cost of basic human rights standards,” he added.

”That puts the state in sort of a dilemma, but it would be regrettable if setbacks occurred after the important advances made by transitional justice in Colombia,” González said.

“History has shown that justice and reconciliation can be ‘married’,” he stated.

The IACHR, like the International Criminal Court, warned that an imminent constitutional reform that will expand the jurisdiction of military justice tribunals in Colombia would be “a serious setback, and would endanger the right of victims to justice.”

The Organisation of American States human rights body also said the reform contains “several provisions that would be incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights.”

The IACHR pointed out, moreover, that judicial protection of fundamental rights “cannot be suspended, even in times of war.”