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In 2016, most asylum requests in Brazil were from Syrians. Governmental data for the 2010-2016-period indicates a total of 3,460 asylum requests and 2,298 recognized Syrian refugees in Brazil. In 2016 alone, 326 Syrians and 57 Palestinians from Syria had their requests for refuge approved in Brazil. While this is a small number if compared to total number of Syrian and Palestinian refugees in the world, how these refugees engaged the housing struggle in Brazil can shed light on the complexity of the Syrian refugee crisis. We prefer to use here the term “refugees from the Syrian conflict”, for it considers people affected by the conflict, which started in 2011, and includes Syrians and other national groups affected by the war, like Palestinians living in Syria. Upon the expansion of the conflict in Syria, representatives of the Brazilian Arab community, with the support and intermediation of sectors of the Catholic Church, contributed to put in place a governmental resolution to facilitate the entry of persons affected by the Syrian conflict to Brazil. This resolution considered other national groups, such as Palestinians living in Syria, extending protection to them. This by no means follows international standards, since most commonly these individuals, although affected by the war, were left out of protection programs. In large cities in Brazil, such as São Paulo, people affected by the Syrian conflict live in squats organized by social movements. Terra Livre[1] is one such social movement. It was founded in 2008 and works by occupying abandoned buildings and terrains with the goal of constructing popular housing. The organization has many occupations in Great São Paulo, which today house a total of more than two thousand people. Since both groups were involved in the struggle for land and home rights, the plight of the refugees from Syrian conflict and of Terra Livre appealed to each other, and some of these refugees went to live in the Leila Khaled occupation[2],organized by Terra Livre with the support of MOP@T[3] (Movimento Palestina para Todos, or Palestine for All Movement in English). MOP@T is a pro-Palestine movement, formed by Brazilians and Palestinians born in Brazil, which until the occupation used to perform actions aimed at making visible the Israeli occupation and the injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people. This movement was originally founded to help Palestinian refugees coming from the Iraq War[4]as a reaction to the abandonment of such refugees by the Palestinian organizations in Brazil[5]. Throughout the years, the movement’s focus became organized around the creation of means to promote the visibility of the Palestinian question in Brazil, especially among social movements and left-wing parties through an internationalist struggle perspective. Although some of its members were Palestinians born in Brazil and others were Brazilians interested in the political questions of the Middle East, its formal objectives and political language had a socialist character, and its relations stretched towards unions, left-wing parties and social movements. In 2015, MOP@T became aware of Palestinian refugee families that had come from Syria and were living in São Paulo, paying expensive rent for boarding in distant neighborhoods. Considering the strategic importance of Downtown for refugees – where they have access to jobs, schools, hospitals and the supporting NGOs – MOP@T asked the housing movement, Terra Livre, for space in one of its occupations. After agreeing on a partnership, sixty Palestinians flocked to the occupation and occupied four stories of the old commercial building. The occupation takes place in an eleven-story building that belonged to a Brazilian state-owned telephone company. Abandoned for over fifteen years, this building was occupied by Brazilians and foreigners alike. Despite all its infrastructure issues, interlocutors reported that they lived in very precarious situations prior to moving there. The name of the occupied building is a reference to the Palestinian activist, Leila Khaled. The suggestion was made by one of Terra Livre’s militants, following the movement’s premise of choosing names from notable and politically combative women. The Palestinian Leila Khaled is known in the imagination of the Brazilian left as a guerrilla fighter who in her own time fought for the liberation of Palestine from the occupation of its territory. Until 2016, the Leila Khaled occupation sheltered, Brazilians - mostly low-income workers -immigrants from Egypt and Peru, and refugees from the Syrian conflict. Multiple senses of belonging are present among refugees of the Syrian conflict, and since most of them are of Palestinian origin, most affirm their national identity and recount their two-fold flight. As argued by an interlocutor: “I’m not Syrian, I’m Palestinian. I am a refugee from Palestine. This is a war among Syrians, my war is the one that expelled my parents from Palestine. (…) Now, I am a refugee, twice.” The occupation provides refugees and other residents with housing and a venue for political participation. In accordance with Brazilian law, foreigners are not entitled to political rights, such as the right to take part in public demonstrations of a political nature. As Helena Manfrinato’s research points out, the reception of refugees from the Syrian conflict, especially after the global media coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Syria in 2015, emphasized humanitarian issues. Activism and social and political engagement in refugee and immigrants’ rights were circumscribed to the environments of political articulation in the context migrants’ movements and other groups like MOP@T. With the Leila Khaled Occupation, a window was opened not only for the visibility of the political struggle for housing and refugees’ rights, but also for connecting different institutions such as social movements and mosques, Christian charity organizations and volunteers that promoted assistance to vulnerable families. Concomitantly, Mirian Alves de Souza’s research[6]focuses on accommodation policies and actions for refugees of the Syrian conflict and determined that accommodation policy in Brazil is ruled by faith-based organizations, mostly Christian, that receive funds from the Brazilian state through agreements and partnerships with the UNHCR. Thus, the provision of accommodation for refugees in Brazil is couched in the language of compassion and charity. Besides, since state and UNHCR’s funds are always minimal, organizations are not obliged to respond to the ever-growing collective demands. By contrast, the Leila Khaled Occupation presents a different scenario. The language used is that of rights, of “class solidarity” and of “solidarity among peoples”, instead of compassion in the humanitarian sense. This occupation’s existence originates from the recognition that housing is a right to be claimed. To its organizers, activists of Terra Livre (whose red flag can be seen on the buildings’ façade), hosting refugees is the duty of the Brazilian state, as refugees do not have access to the city because of “real estate speculation”. Cost of living in the city of São Paulo, as well as in the city of Rio de Janeiro, makes it impossible for refugees to stay in Brazil[7]. To conclude, both researches point out that while housing rights are shared by all, Brazilians and non-Brazilians alike, the right to engage in political struggle is not guaranteed to foreigners. But for the activists of Leila Khaled, the struggle for housing and for political rights is one and the same. For Palestinian families, to live together as neighbors – like some used to do in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria – achieved an advantage as important as getting affordable housing in downtown São Paulo. It permitted the reconstruction of the camp’s modes of socialization in their coexistence and shared everyday life, their mutual help and belonging. [1]https://www.facebook.com/TerraLivreCampoCidade/?fref=mentions [2]https://www.facebook.com/refugiadosnaocupa/ [3]https://www.facebook.com/movimentopalestinaparatodos [4]4: In 2008, 117 Palestinians from the Al Rweished camp - formed after the Iraq War - went to Brazil and settled in Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, in cities with large Arab-Muslim communities. [5] See Hamid, 2015. [6]This postdoctoral research has been developed since September 2015 at Centro de Estudos em Direito e Política de Imigração e Refúgio (Center for Studies on Immigration and Refuge Law and Policy) of Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, through a grant from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. [7]Refugees still tend to prefer these cities, mainly São Paulo, because it has a large Arab-Muslim community, which has mosques, and it is where the NGOs of refugee assistance are concentrated.
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By Alexander Weissenburger (ISA) While the civil war in Syria has received ample coverage in Western media, this is far less true for the ongoing conflict in Yemen. Without perceptible repercussions to the Western world, there is little interest in the fallout of this conflict of close to fifteen years. It entails no terrorist threat to European capitals and, due to Yemen’s remoteness, hardly a refugee reaches Europe. Yet, far away from the glare of Western cameras, Yemen has to deal with its own displaced population, and, moreover, remains a hub for regional migration from the Horn of Africa. Yemen and the Horn of Africa In 1980 the Yemen Arab Republic became - and remains to this day - the only country on the Arabian Peninsula to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1967.[1] However, already before the 1980s, Yemen accepted refugees from the Horn of Africa. While the first group of new arrivals fled the Eritrean War of Independence from the 1960s onwards,[2] later refugees came primarily from Somalia. In 2002, the UNHCR registered over 70,000 refugees in Yemen, 92% of whom originated from Somalia. Estimates, however, suggest that the actual number of migrants in Yemen far exceeded 300,000.[3] By 2013, the Yemeni Transitional Government reckoned the number of refugees to be between 600,000 and 800,000. These large numbers of migrants, including refugees as well as asylum seekers and illegal immigrants,[4] led to revisions in Yemen’s previously rather liberal migration policies. At the same time, the so-called “War on Terror” caused migrants to be increasingly seen as a security threat.[5] Nevertheless, migration to Yemen continued unabated. By 2013 Ethiopians constituted the majority of migrants to Yemen and made up 83% of the approximately 120,000 new arrivals of 2016. Migrants pay smugglers several hundred Dollars (between 100 and 500$) to cross the Gulf of Aden and then several hundred more to reach Yemen’s northern border. For another 800$ they are smuggled across the border to Saudi Arabia, which remains the main destination for the migrants. Since 2015, with the current war in Yemen, the way into Saudi Arabia has become more difficult and a new route opened up with migrants crossing the Red Sea in Northern Yemen in order to reach Sudan and from there travel on to Egypt, Libya and, finally, to Europe.[6] On their way, migrants face horrible conditions. Besides the overall deteriorating situation in war-torn Yemen, migrants are frequently mistreated by their smugglers. Since the trafficking of humans - often alongside the smuggling of weapons and oil - has become such a lucrative business, the smuggling networks have no interest in migrants making the journey on their own. Migrants are therefore often forced to use these networks,[7] in which case they are completely dependent on their smugglers, who frequently abuse their power. Migrants are forced to hand over money, held to ransom, sexually abused and tortured in order to extort money or contact information of relatives, who are then pressured into sending money in exchange of the release of the captive. A Human Rights Watch report states that this happens at a systematic scale with camps in deserted areas run mainly by Yemenis.[8] Due to the worsening security situation in the country, African migrants as well as Yemenis increasingly leave Yemen. While the African migrants return home,[9] the Yemenis are left with only few options. The countries on the Horn of Africa are not attractive and Arabic countries are hard to reach due to the blockade imposed on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. Nevertheless, there are several thousand refugees from Yemen living in countries such as Somalia, Eritrea and Egypt, and, most importantly, Jordan. While the UN has registered 12,500 Yemenis in Jordan, their actual number could easily be twice as much.[10] The number of Yemenis looking for a better life abroad is likely to rise as the situation deteriorates. For the time being, however, their number is easily dwarfed by the three million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Internal Displacement in Yemen Internal displacement in the case of Yemen is intrinsically linked to the ongoing crisis. The current conflict in Yemen has its roots in the early 2000s when Husayn al-Huthi, an Islamic scholar and agitator belonging to the Zaydi denomination of Shiite Islam, founded the Huthi movement in the northern province of Sa’da. His Islamist and anti-Western rhetoric put him in conflict with the Yemeni government, which tried to subdue the movement. Between 2004 and 2010 the northern provinces of Yemen saw six rounds of war between the government and the movement. By the end of the last round, 250,000 people had been displaced in the province of Sa’da alone.[11] In 2011, the Huthis participated in the Arab spring uprising and took part in the transition process after Ali Abdallah Salih had resigned as president. When the new government under President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi failed to meet the population’s expectations, the Huthis exploited the popular anger and marched south, taking Sanaa in September 2014. President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi fled first to the southern Yemeni city of Aden and then to Saudi Arabia. In March 2015, the aforementioned coalition under the leadership of Saudi Arabia began to intervene in Yemen, with the declared goal of reinstating President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi. The coalition keeps bombing Huthi controlled territory, including civilian infrastructure, agricultural areas and cultural heritage sites, while simultaneously preventing humanitarian aid from entering the country by sea and air. Mainly due to the blockade, Yemen - which has to import around 90% of its main food staples - today faces what the UN calls the world’s greatest current humanitarian catastrophe. 60% of the population are food insecure and 8.4 million people (around 25% of the total population) are at risk of starvation.[12] Besides hunger, diseases and fighting, the population faces corruption and political as well as economic oppression, by all actors in the conflict. With the crisis most severe in the countryside, where what little arrives in terms of humanitarian aid in Yemen is harder to distribute, people flee to the cities and especially the safer regions of the country. Between 2014 and 2018 the population of the relatively safe province of Marib in central Yemen rose from around 350,000 to more than 1.5 million. The impact is obvious. Hospitals and schools are overwhelmed, as is the housing market. While IDPs are also housed in camps, many are from the middle class and can afford to rent accommodation in the city. This increase in demand severely pushed up rent prices, adding to the strain on the local population. The same problem is seen in the southwestern province of Ibb, where people took refuge from the fighting in the city of Taizz.[13] Closing Remarks With no end of the conflict in sight, the situation of the population is set to deteriorate further in the coming months, with the number of refugees from, as well as within, Yemen likely to rise. It can only be hoped that the increasing public interest in the crisis following in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 puts pressure on the relevant political actors to effect at least the lifting of the blockade in order to alleviate the misery of the Yemeni population. Notes: [1] Until 1990, Yemen was split into the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the north and west of the country and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south and east. After unification, the new state remained subject to all international treaties the former YAR had signed. [2] Thiollet, Helene: From Migration Hub to Asylum Crisis: The Changing Dynamics of Contemporary Migration in Yemen, in Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition, edited by Helen Lackner, Saqi Books, London 2014, 281. [3] Hughes, Nesya H B: Yemen and Refugees: Progressive Attitudes –Policy Voids, Forced Migration Review January 2003, 36-38. [4] Thiollet, Helene: From Migration Hub to Asylum Crisis, 280. [5] Thiollet, Helene: From Migration Hub to Asylum Crisis, 275-276. [6] Tinti, Peter: Migrant Smuggling: Paths from the Horn of Africa to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Africa in the World Report 7, Institute for Security Studies November 2017, 16. [7] Abdiker, Mohammed: Yemen: the Deadly Migration Route the World is Ignoring, CNN, 20 June 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/20/opinions/yemen-migration-iom/index.html, accessed on 24 October 2018. [8] Human Rights Watch: Yemen’s Torture Camps: Abuse of Migrants by Human Traffickers in a Climate of Impunity, 2014, 37-47. [9] UNHCR: As Yemen Conditions Deteriorate, Somali Refugees Look to Return Home, 19 May 2017, http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/5/591ea2554/yemen-conditions-deteriorate-somali-refugees-look-return-home.html, accessed on 24 October 2018. [10] Luck, Taylor: Yemenis Join the Line of Refugees Seeking Help in Jordan, The National, September 18, 2018, https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/yemenis-join-the-line-of-refugees-seeking-help-in-jordan-1.771577. [11] Brandt, Marieke: Tribes and Politics in Yemen, New York, Hurst, 2017, p. 326. [12] https://news.un.org/en/focus/yemen, accessed on 15 November 2018. [13] Tuzayid Adad al-Najihin ila Madina Ma'rib, al-Jazeera, 13 March 2016, http://www.aljazeera.net/programs/newsreports/2016/3/19/%D8%AA%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%A3%D8%B9%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89-%D9%85%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%A3%D8%B1%D8%A8, accessed on 24 October 2018; al-Yaman.. al-Nazihun yarfa’a Ijarat al-Sukun 550% bi-l-Manatiq al-Amina, al-Arabi al-Jadid, 3 September 2016, https://www.alaraby.co.uk/economy/2016/9/3/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%AD-%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%81%D8%B9-%D8%A5%D9%8A%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%83%D9%86-500-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B7%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A2%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A9, accessed on 24 October 2018.
By Khadija Abbasi & Alessandro Monsutti Migration of young Afghan to Europe is structured by a moral economy that has a twofold dimension. First, it implies a social system of exchange and redistribution between young migrants and their relatives who stayed behind. It is underpinned by a code of conduct implying mutual obligations and collective responsibilities, by a system of values and solidarity, norms and social obligations that defines their success as migrants. Second, migration is characterized by the high pressure to succeed. Prompted by their quest for autonomy and recognition, the migrants become increasingly aware during their journey that only a few of them will be able to settle down in Europe. The relationships among young candidates to asylum are imbued by competition and jealousy. These young migrants are invested in the double mission of preparing a better future for their family and proving their individual value. In such a context, many young Afghan migrants share their hopes and frustrations on the cyberspace, across geographical, social and gender boundaries. Migration and the status of forcibly being displaced are recurrent topics and are addressed with ambivalent feelings: suffering and separation, but also opportunity and autonomy. When Afghans talk about their experience of mobility, the term āwāragī is mostly used. It means ‘wandering,’ ‘vagrancy,’ while āwāra refers to a person who is in the state of āwāragī, a wanderer, a vagrant. The semantic field also implies the idea of being separated from one’s homeland and having to change one’s location against one’s own will. Ghorbat is another word recurrently associated with āwāragi. It describes the status of being a stranger and lonely in a place different from one’s homeland. The two terms have negative connotations and are often used interchangeably. Two terms with religious connotation, mohājerat, which means ‘migration,’ and mohājer, which designates a person who has migrated out of his/her home country, are nowadays much less commonly used than among the previous generations of Afghans who took refuge in Pakistan and Iran. An online conversation between various transnational young Afghans may serve as an example: – Zari, a female Afghan whose application for asylum in Germany is currently under review, writes on her page on Facebook: “āwāragī means to be born in Tehran, to be thrown away to Kabul, and, to stay in Berlin; but nowhere you live the life.” The post triggered many comments. Zari describes herself as an āwāra who cannot enjoy the journeys imposed on her. – Shafiqa, newly settled in Australia, reacts: “Stay āwāra as there is death in immobility.” – Zari: “I feel upset when I remember the reality of being an āwāra.” – Shafiqa: “āwāragī is in the blood of our generation. Just imagine! In three decades, we have experienced the misfortunes of three centuries. Despites this, we still should stay alive.” – Zari: “In these three decades, three generations became āwāra and the fourth generation is on the way but without home, in suspension, and with no identity.” – Suraya, based in the United States: “Dear Zari, life is not something beyond this. That’s life.” – Zari: “Our life is an absolute āwāragī.” – Hashmat intervenes with a free verse: “We should put the framework of our identity under our arm [as a sign of leaving], as the walls of home have rotted and we are still āwāra in the streets that are not going to warm [welcome] us.” – Zari: “The streets that did not warm us and the rotted walls that could not bear framework of our identity.” – Hashmat: “And if these rotted walls collapse, thousands and thousands of the lost people will rise from under soil.” – Kousha, based in India adds: “āwāragī means to be uprooted.” – Munirah: “I was born in Kabul, granted asylum in Hamburg, but this is just the beginning of my story... Then, I am thrown to Norway – everything had to start from scratch – and then I am thrown to England – everything from scratch again –, then I am thrown to Scotland – everything from scratch again – and maybe soon I’ll be thrown again to another place. Perhaps life is all about this constant uprooting?” – Sadiq: “We are an āwāra generation.” – Shafiqa: “The generation of being in continual āwāragī, moving from one ghorbat to another. Even if you are not thrown from one land to another, the fact that your mind is uprooted is enough to prevent you to rest in one place, even in the land that has granted you asylum. There is death in immobility.” For transnational Afghans who took part in this conversation, the conventional concept of home does not suit their situation with a multi-local sense of belonging and loneliness. They question the notion of home for a generation who grew up and reached adulthood in mobility. They contest the notion of home for people who were born as refugees in the country of asylum. Shafiqa used a Sufi trope to respond to Zari’s complaint of being āwāra: “There is death in immobility.” In so doing, she rationalizes her hyper-mobility. Shafiqa and Zari are amongst the generation who were born refugees to Afghan families in Iran. Zari left Iran for Germany and Shafiqa settled in Australia. Both left Iran to Afghanistan in search of home. Both left Afghanistan disappointed and continued migration in search of a better life where their sufferings and exclusion are recognized. But the streets in Germany, Norway, England, Australia, the United States are not welcoming. There is no apparent end to the wandering life of the āwāra generation; āwāragī is not a transient period of life but becomes an ontological status. These young people inhabit mobility. On the one hand, they feel that their plight is not understood by their relatives left back in Afghanistan or the countries of first asylum, Pakistan and Iran. On the other hand, their everyday life is dominated by competition and suspicion among peers, as only a few of them will be able to get a protection status and settle down in Europe. The cyberspace acquires a crucial importance for them, it is the realm where they can express themselves much more freely than in face-to-face relationships, address their dissatisfaction and magnify their aspirations.
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