Zurück nach Syrien

Assad, so liest man dieser Tage ständig, habe den Krieg gewonnen, nun gälte es, an den Wiederaufbau des Landes zu denken und ja, bald könnten dann ja auch die ersten Flüchtlinge abgeschoben werden. Darüber denkt die CDU zumindest schon laut nach.

Derweil kehren in der Tat die ersten Syrer zurück. Warum sie dies tun, was das konkret bedeutet - der Weg ist oft si beschwerlich wie die Flucht zuvor war - und was sie erwartet, das haben Journalisten der Irish Times recherchiert und in einer langen, sehr lesenswerten Reportage dokumentiert, die jeder lesen sollte, bevor es seine Meinung über eine Rückführung von abgelehnten Ayslbewerbern nach Syrien kund zu tun plant.

In Damaskus etwa trafen sie Sami, der in sein Heimatland zurückkehrte, nur um dort von der Armee zwangsrekrutiert zu werden:

Sitting outside a bar in the Bab Touma district of Damascus this autumn, Sami looks malnourished. In the four months after he left Germany he lost 15kg, or nearly 2½ stone. He explains that he wants to tell his story to warn other Syrian refugees in Europe about what could happen to them if they come back.

After a month in the prison cell Sami was sent to the army, despite having completed military service years before. Within days he was sent to an Isis-controlled territory – one of the areas of Syria currently experiencing the most brutal fighting.

The lack of food and care for soldiers means a posting there could be a death sentence, according to Sami. “We fight all the day, and then in the night they give us some bread and some potatoes . . . It’s not really food. No breakfast, no lunch . . . Sometimes we [can’t] find water.”

Three weeks before we meet, and three months after he was enlisted in the army, an Isis bomb detonated near where he was fighting, killing almost everyone with him. Sami can now barely walk. He holds one side of his body rigidly. Later he rolls up his trouser leg to show deep lacerations extending all the way up his body. “I know too many people who were in Europe and came back. They are with me now [on the front lines].”