Ramy al-Dow, 21, draws his thin-striped V-neck sweater up to his neck and crosses his arms over his chest in a futile bid to shield himself from the piercing chill cloaking this mountainous southern Turkish village overlooking the Syrian border. He’s noticeably on edge, despite the fact that on this night he’s in a safe house. Three generations of women sit in the courtyard outside, shelling buckets of pomegranates harvested from their nearby fields. Ramy’s cousin Mahmoud al-Dow, 16, stands watch on the street. “Just in case,” Ramy says.
The young Syrian refugees have spent the past two weeks sleeping outdoors, in mosques, in people’s courtyards, in the fields along the border. They are afraid of being kidnapped by spies and sympathizers working for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ruthless regime and being taken across the border by force. They want their real names published in the event that if they are captured they will not disappear into the nameless, faceless pit of victims, but that somebody may ask after them. Their fears are not entirely unwarranted. (See photos of Syrians fleeing into Turkey.)
There’s a palpable change in the border area since the heady, bustling days this summer when
Read More from the Article Source: Full Article
