Eight-year-old Rayan Assani is aware of subsequent to nothing about Syria, however in a couple of minutes, the little woman with lengthy black hair and a Barbie backpack will cross the border and head for her household’s native Aleppo.
“It is going to be fairly,” she mentioned, talking Arabic in a barely audible voice, clutching her pink earmuffs in her hand amid the bustle on the Turkish-Syrian border.
There, dozens of youngsters like her had been making ready to cross with their dad and mom following the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
“Our dad informed us the struggle was over and we had been going again to Aleppo. That is all,” mentioned her older sister, Merve, 17.
She admitted she had “cried rather a lot” on Wednesday as her household took a bus out of Istanbul, the place they’d fled in 2012, a yr into Syria’s brutal 13-year battle.
It was a gray, cloudy day on the Cilvegozu border crossing, and from the place the Assani sisters had been standing, nothing of what awaited them in Syria was seen on the horizon.
Slightly boy in his father’s arms had chocolate smeared round his mouth and a Turkish flag knotted round his neck like a cape.
“That is to thank Turkey for welcoming us,” mentioned the daddy as he hurried again to Damascus, the capital and hometown to most of the three million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
– ‘Kiss on the cheek’ –
In a protracted line that had been forming since daybreak, Mumina Hamid was watching over her twins, carrying a protracted black coat, a pink scarf on her head.
Husam and Wael, age six, had simply been to the barber one final time earlier than leaving Istanbul. They’d the identical haircut, shaved on the perimeters, every with a packet of cookies in his Spider-Man backpack.
“Syria is larger than Istanbul,” Wael mentioned knowingly, including that he hoped there could be cats at their remaining vacation spot, the central metropolis of Hama.
What would they miss about Istanbul? “My buddies,” he mentioned. “And my trainer,” he added, taking a look at his mom.
Husam, for his half, left behind a girlfriend. Saying goodbye, “I gave her a kiss on the cheek,” he admitted, after being prompted by his mom.
– Turkish e-book –
The Hidir household was travelling to Idlib, 40 minutes by automobile from the border.
“It will likely be higher than Turkey,” mentioned 12-year-old Leyla — although she appeared unconvinced as she toted a big, well-worn black suitcase towards the border, her black hat pulled down over her ears.
She acknowledged she didn’t know what Syria could be like. When her household fled, she was six months previous.
Her two little sisters, who had been carrying pink Crocs regardless of the winter chilly, had been born in Turkey.
They had been making the journey with out their toys and stuffed animals, which had been left behind.
“Their father will carry them when he joins us in just a few months, God prepared,” mentioned their mom, Nada. “For now, he is staying in Turkey to work.”
Requested what she had introduced in her backpack, Leyla timidly answered: “My Turkish e-book.”
“And a Koran,” added her mom.
Leyla reads solely “a little bit” Arabic, she mentioned. She didn’t know when she would be capable to return to high school in Syria.
On her final day of lessons in Istanbul on Wednesday, Leyla didn’t inform her buddies she was leaving.
“I did not need them to be unhappy, too,” she mentioned.
