There were rows of earth-colored tents on the camp site, surrounded by a wall. When I looked into a large tent found in one corner of the camp, around 40 children were practicing pronunciation of Kurdish words in a loud voice. Though provided with desks and chairs, they had neither writing tools nor textbooks. Their lesson was a pronunciation practice, while looking at the letters written on a whiteboard. It was quite a simple lesson but for the children it seemed to be a lot of fun.
This is a Kurdish refugee camp in Suruc, located in southern Turkey. The school started on December 2nd, 2014, with high hopes. Although it is not equipped with electricity or children’s textbooks, it must be great fun for the children who have nothing to do during the days after their evacuation into Turkey.
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| Children learning Kurdish at a school in a refugee camp (Suruc, Turkey, December, 2014) |
This is a Kurdish refugee camp in Suruc, located in southern Turkey. The school started on December 2nd, 2014, with high hopes. Although it is not equipped with electricity or children’s textbooks, it must be great fun for the children who have nothing to do during the days after their evacuation into Turkey.
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| Amina, teaching Kurdish |
One woman teaches in front of the children. Her name is Amina (age 21). She fled from the armed conflict in the Syrian town of Ayn al-Arab ( Kobane in Kurdish). She was studying law at a university aiming to be a lawyer, but her life was turned up side down by the rise of “IS” (also called the Islamic State).
Even after the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the university continued to give lectures but the highway to and from Aleppo, where the university is located, was taken by IS militants. One day, when she was driving to the university, Amina was forcefully halted by an armed, hairy-faced man. She was caught by the shoulder and violently dragged out of the car, and was reproached for her “anti-Islamic” clothing. She was wearing a hijab (a veil), but parts of her skin were not being covered.
She was interrogated with rapid-fire questions such as, “where did you come from and where are you going? Are you Kurdish or Arabic?”. The men soon released her because it turned out she was not affiliated to armed groups, but Amina still remembers how her legs were trembling, terrified by the thought that she might be physically abused and forced to be a slave. Since then she has avoided going out by herself and has left her university.
Following the incident, Amina became withdrawn and stayed home, which she thought was wrong and against her inner personality. One day she decided to teach Kurdish at an elementary school in Kobane, and took a training course to be a teacher, provided by an aid organization. At that time it was prohibited in Syria to teach Kurdish language to children. However, after the conflict started, the surveillance by the central government loosened, which led to the emergence of support groups to spread Kurdish culture. Since the conflict started, commodity prices sharply rose and her everyday life became increasingly severe economically. With no payment for her volunteering work, Amina’s living standard was getting worse, but she remained active in her teaching, because she felt it was a rewarding job.
But the new found solace did not last long. Amina’s father, who had dealt with used car sales, had to give up his business because of the war. While the family was living a modest life, using their hard-earned savings and cutting down on expenses, militants of IS reappeared in her life yet again. They mercilessly killed animals, torn down trees in the town, destroyed houses and did all sorts of brutal acts. Ultimately, about two and a half months ago, the town of Kobane turned into a raging battle field. Amina’s family had no choice but to leave their hometown Kobane, where they had lived for generations, and crossed the border into Suruc in Turkey.
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| Smiling students and a teacher during a break between lessons |
At present Amina gives classes at a school in the camp and lives with her family in a refugee camp in Suruc. She finds joy in the establishment and operation of the school, but, on the other hand, worries about the future of the children; “in fact, it is far from natural that children have to study in such circumstances. I hope they can go back to Syria and study in well-equipped surroundings.”
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| One of Amina’s students |
Commentary: “Who are the Kurds?”
By Yoshifumi KAGEHIRA of AAR Japan Tokyo in charge of relief assistance for Syrian Refugees
Kurds are regarded as the largest ethnic group without a state. After World War 1, when the territory of the Ottoman Empire was dissolved among Britain, France and others, the establishment of Kurdish nation was promised, but was later nullified. Following the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire, several countries became independent one after another, but Kurdish people were left out from the fruits of the negotiations. As a result, the Kurdish people inhabit adjacent parts of several countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran. The population is estimated to be 30 million.
As Kurds are a minority ethnic group in any country in the world, they have been discriminated and persecuted by major groups in many ways. One example is a prohibition of learning their mother language Kurdish in Syria. Kurdish people in each country have joined in the movement to achieve independence and autonomy and to get rid of the long period of discrimination. Therefore, the cultural and social bond of the Kurdish people is very tight. Kurdish people living in Syria regard themselves not as a Syrian, but as a “Kurd”.
Syrian Crisis started from a collision between government forces and armed opposition groups, but Kurds haven’t taken either side. In the middle of the chaos that spread all over Syria, Kurds formed their own group in order to improve their position. They are not aligned with either the government or the opposition; the Kurdish movement is for the Kurds, that is according to the Kurdish people’s interests. In Kobane, a mainly Kurdish town, one of the major Kurdish strongholds was established and armed forces were mobilized to protect the town. In order to attain autonomy, a great number of Kurds moved from various regions to Kobane and, accordingly, its population grew from 50,000 before the Syria Crisis to estimated 400,000 before the invasion by the “IS”.
Although Kurds aimed to establish an autonomous region, with their fragile economic basis, they could not organize a military power strong enough to withstand the advances of the IS and at one time, they came very close to surrender Kobane to the IS. However, with the support of Kurdish armed forces in Iraq and airstrikes from the U.S.-led alliance, they succeeded in warding off the attack by the IS while paying a high cost; the town of Kobane was in ruins, leveled to the ground.
The history of the Kurdish people has been a subject to the interests of surrounding nations ever since the end of the Ottoman Empire, and even today, one hundred years later, the Kurds are still being trifled with in the great game of nation-states and regional politics.
Considering the political situation in Syria, we used assumed names in order to protect the people and their family mentioned here.
[Reporter] Yoshifumi KAWABATA
KAWABATA is a photo journalist. Travelling worldwide, he contributes photos and documents to magazines and other publications. In 2014, his series of five photos titled “Refugee children from Syria”, won a gold prize at a contest sponsored by Japan Photographers’ Society (JPS). He has also published a book, “The world a photographer has seen – crawling on the ground is my job”, under Shinhyoron Publisher (profile as the date of the article)
Japanese-English translation by Ms. Hiroko Hida
English editing by Karl Yanagisawa
The article on this page has been translated by volunteers as part of the AAR Japan's Volunteer Programme. Their generous contributions allow us to spread our activities and ideas globally, through an ever-growing selection of our reports from the field.