The fear of speaking has almost completely disappeared from the eyes of Syrians in Istanbul. It is immediately evident how much the attitude of this community has changed, which for years has avoided cameras, cameras and interviews for fear of being identified and putting family members remaining in Syria at risk. For them the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime it represented the end of a nightmare and the beginning of a dream, that of returning home. While images arrive from the border of queues of thousands of Syrians queuing to return home, in Fatih neighborhood the flags are waving and people are willing to talk about their country, without fear anymore. “After 13 years of hell it is time for Syria to decide for itself. There will be mistakes, there will be problems, but nothing can be worse than the Assad family” explains Ahmed, a 29-year-old doctor who fled Damascus with his mother in Saudi Arabia and is now in Turkey, the last stop before returning home. “I am a dentist and I managed to take my son abroad and let him finish his studies – explains the mother – but how many people have had their lives ruined?”.
Mrs Zeinab even bought the tickets first: “When Homs and Hama fell I understood that it was over for him (Assad). In the courtyard of the great mosque of Fatih two Turks are selling flags of Syria: “Yesterday I sold hundreds of them, I had to make a lot of phone calls to find them, today less because of the rain, but they are selling”, one of the two replies satisfied. A few meters away, two teenagers sit waving a flag. Omer and Faisal are 15 years old and have no memories of Syria, nor of the Assad regime: “I arrived here when I was two years old, I grew up here and went to school here – explains Faisal in perfect Turkish – now my father he goes to Aleppo to see how the situation is, this year I have to finish school, then I think we will return.” “On Sunday the whole family was glued to the phone and they were moved. I arrived here at three years old, we reached my father, I like Turkey and the school is good, but I feel Syrian” says Omer with Faisal nodding.
A barber displays a large Syrian flag alongside a Turkish flag. The owner, Mahmud, 38 years old, explains to me that he had the same shop in Homs, but that he had to leave everything and flee. “I arrived and I had nothing, little by little I started working and today I pay the rent here. For the moment I’m staying in Istanbul, I need to save some money, then I would like a shop in Homs too. We are grateful to the Turkey and Erdogan, now it is difficult for me to abandon this country that gave me this opportunity”, explains the barber. Osama, on the other hand, runs a restaurant, is happy with Assad’s end, but still can’t find peace. “My brother is in Saydnaya prison, he is locked up in the basement, but the rebels don’t know how to access him. There are videos from the cameras. I just look at them hoping to recognize him”, he says while his son Abdurrahman shows the videos of the prisoners on his phone.
“I’m lucky, when the war broke out I was in Qatar for work, I still deal with commerce and my son was born there a year later. Only 5 years ago we came to Turkey, but unfortunately Assad took my brother. Yesterday he didn’t we have had news, I believe he is among the prisoners still alive, it is the only reason I have to return. He (Assad ed.) has deaths in every family in Syria on his conscience”, explains Osama. Obaida, originally from Jishr el Shugur: “I am 32 years old, I came here at the age of 20. At that age, moving is easy, but on Sunday I understood how difficult it must have been for my parents and my grandmother. They were all crying. We are organizing the return home, I’m a bricklayer and now I think there will be work for me.” In the Beit Al Ezz restaurant, Syrians come to eat to relieve homesickness. The owner Mohammed had a restaurant in Aleppo: “I had to close but I managed to open in Istanbul, feed my family and give work to many kids. In a few days I’m leaving for Aleppo for a few weeks, I want to open in my city too, but in Istanbul we will remain open, a piece of my life is here.” The four young waiters pose with a flag, now omnipresent in the neighborhood.
There are 4 million Syrians in Türkiye and around 670 thousand live in the city of Istanbul. Often used by the opposition to attack the president Recep Tayyip Erdoganaccused of having been too permissive, this community has never truly integrated into the Turkish social fabric. One of the results is that in the last ten years it is as if a piece of Syria before the civil war had been transplanted to Fatih. An escape that put the poor and the wealthy, the young and the elderly on the same level. People who initially sought salvation hoping for a quick end to Assad, but were then forced to accept reality and worked to rebuild their lives, but without ever ceasing to cultivate the dream of returning home.