Gangs attack Syrian refugees in Turkey with fists and knives

Over the past two days, angry mobs of men in half a dozen Turkish cities have turned on Syrian refugees living in their neighborhoods, vandalizing their shops and cars and attacking them with fists and knives.

Across the border, in parts of northern Syria where Turkey holds sway, Syrians have confronted Turkish soldiers in their midst, pelting their vehicles with stones, tearing up Turkish flags and condemning the Turkish soldiers in street protests.

The scattered violence, which has left at least seven people dead in Syria, according to a war monitor, has exposed growing cracks in the coexistence between Syrians and Turks on either side of their shared border. After years of generally peaceful relations, recent political shifts and mounting economic distress have brought tensions to the surface.

Many Turks resent the 3.1 million Syrian refugees in their country and accuse them, with or without evidence, of fueling economic problems such as low wages and persistent inflation that exceeded 75 percent in May.

And many Syrians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s government have gone from seeing Turkey as their greatest protector to fearing that it will abandon them. Support for the idea of ​​sending Syrian refugees home has spread across Turkey’s political spectrum.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who cut ties with Syria in 2011 and backed rebels seeking to topple Assad, said last week he would not rule out meeting his former foe to restore ties.

A Syrian activist who called himself Abu Samer al-Halabi, speaking by phone from Idlib, a province in northern Syria where protesters clashed with Turkish soldiers this week, said the region was “like a balloon about to burst.”

“This tension has deep reasons,” he said. “Above the table the Turks are with us, but under the table they are not.”

After the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Turkey opened its borders to refugees fleeing brutal Syrian army attacks on rebel communities. Turkey built camps to house them, hosted political opposition to Mr. al-Assad and supported rebels in northern Syria fighting his forces.

In recent years, as the war reached a stalemate, Turkey moved its own troops into rebel-held areas of Syria along the border. It deployed soldiers along sensitive frontlines to prevent advances and formed close ties with rebel groups in a so-called safe zone, hoping that Syrian refugees in Turkey would return there.

But relatively few have done so, leaving millions of Syrians scattered across Turkey. They have generally lived peacefully alongside their Turkish hosts, many learning to speak Turkish and sending their children to the country’s schools. While some have started their own businesses, many earn low wages in manufacturing and agriculture.

Many Turks opposed allowing so many Syrians into the country, but their views on the refugees have deteriorated further since a cost-of-living crisis that began in 2018 has left many Turks feeling impoverished. Encouraged by right-wing politicians and journalists, many have turned their anger on the refugees.

The unrest this week was sparked by allegations on Sunday that a Syrian man had abused his 7-year-old nephew in a public toilet in Kayseri, a city in central Turkey. The man was arrested and the girl and her mother and siblings were placed under state protection while police investigated, Turkish authorities said.

That night, angry men in Kayseri attacked Syrian cars, shops and houses, setting some on fire, according to footage posted on social media and broadcast by Turkish TV channels.

Similar attacks took place in half a dozen other cities on Monday, including Hatay, Konya and Istanbul, with baton-wielding men marching through neighborhoods where Syrians live and hurling rocks at their buildings. In Gaziantep, a group of men surrounded a Syrian man and stabbed him in the leg, sending him fleeing across a busy street, according to surveillance footage broadcast by Turkish news media.

Speaking at a meeting of mayors from his ruling Justice and Development Party on Monday, Erdogan condemned the violence and accused his political opponents of inciting it.

“We will not get anywhere by stirring up xenophobia and hatred against refugees in society,” Erdogan said, adding that the attacks were carried out by a “small group” inspired by “this poisonous discourse of the opposition.”

On Tuesday, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on social media that security forces had arrested 474 people in connection with the violence.

As news of the attacks in Turkey spread in Syria, protesters and armed groups targeted Turkish troops and accused the Turks of racism against Syrians. The anger, activists in the region said, also fueled fears that Turkey was seeking ways to mend ties with Mr. al-Assad, a scenario that could endanger Syrians living in areas currently outside the government’s control.

Unrest has broken out in cities across northern Syria, with rebels and protesters confronting Turkish troops. Protesters tried to storm the headquarters of the Turkish-backed government in the city of Afrin on Monday, sparking clashes that left six people dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. A seventh was killed elsewhere.

Turkey has responded by removing some Turkish troops from their posts, reinforcing others and closing the border crossings between Turkey and Syria on Tuesday.

Serhat Erkmen, a Turkish security analyst who studies northern Syria, said in an interview that armed groups there were tense about the possibility of Turkey and Syria restoring ties. Many of their members fled north from other parts of Syria and feared losing the Turkish protection they had come to rely on.

“For them, the idea of ​​reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus may mean returning to the status quo, but it is not possible for them to return to the status quo before the war,” Mr. Erkmen said. “When they hear things like peace negotiations, they feel like they are going to lose their future.”

Turkey may be able to calm the situation now, but Mr Erkmen said he expects interaction between the Syrian and Turkish governments to continue to increase and that Erdogan and al-Assad will eventually move closer together.

“It’s coming,” he said. “First contact at a high level, and then contact at a leadership level.”

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.