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SYRIA

French Navy ‘sends warship towards Syria’

An anti-aircraft frigate from the French Navy was dispatched in the direction of Syria on Thursday morning according to reports as the West appears to be preparing for a military strike against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Published: 29 August 2013 09:12 CEST
French Navy 'sends warship towards Syria'
File photo: A war ship in the French navy. Photo: Boris Horvat/AFP

The frigate Chevalier Paul left the port of Toulon in the south of France bound for Syria on Thursday, according to the French online news site Le Point.

The decision to dispatch the anti-aircraft vessel, comes just a day after it was announced that the French Parliament would hold an emergency session on Syria in response to the deadly chemical weapons attack, the West believes was carried out by Bashar al-Assad.

It is the latest move that suggests France is gearing up to intervene militarily in the war-torn country.

The anti-aircraft warship, believed to be the most modern in the French Navy fleet, could be used to protect allied bombers in the case the US, UK and France – the three countries pushing for military intervention – decide to launch air strikes against Assad.

Plans difficult to develop

French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said on Thursday that Western plans for retaliatory action against Syria for an alleged chemical weapons attack are "difficult to develop".

"The international community must find a riposte that is adapted to the situation,"  said on France 2 television.

She said it was "necessary to obtain the adhesion of several allies and partners at the heart of the UN Security Council, which we are trying to do" but added that "states like Russia and China pose a certain number of problems."

The aim of military action "will not simply be to punish the Syrian regime and prevent it from carrying out a new attack of this type … but also to seek a way out of this crisis."

"It's extremely important for the international community if it intervenes to do so in a manner that the country can recover."

Opposition leader to meet Hollande

Speaking to the French press on Thursday the leader of Syria’s main opposition group Ahmad al Jarba, urged the West to take action to rid Syria of Assad.

Jarba told the daily Le Parisien he will tell French President FrancoisHollande in talks on Thursday morning: "Chemical Bashar has massacred our peopleon August 21. He must not escape the punishment he deserves."

The UN-Arab League special envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Wednesday it was clear a chemical substance had been used in the August 21 attack in a Damascus suburb, killing hundreds of people.

"May he be attacked and may his regime disappear," said Jarba, branding Assad "an infection, a microbe for the region".

"This man and his family must be brought to justice in The Hague by the International Criminal Court."

The Syrian opposition expects Western countries to carry out "a punishing strike against the regime", followed by "political and military support for the Free Syrian Army", he added.

Assad has the support of Russia, Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah and Iran, he said, but added: "We are lacking everything. Our allies haven't given us anything we asked for."

Jarba also warned of Al-Qaeda's influence in the region.

"These extremists are manipulated by the regime to scare the world."

"A courageous decision must be taken. We need our friends. Words are not enough," he added.

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SYRIA

‘I can’t go back’: Syrian refugees in Denmark face limbo after status revoked

Bilal Alkale's family is among the hundred or so Syrian refugees in Denmark whose lives are on hold amid an insufferable legal limbo -- their temporary residency permits have been revoked but they can't be deported. Now, they have no rights.

Published: 3 December 2021 09:19 CET
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. 
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. Photo: Thibault Savary / AFP

Alkale, who until recently ran his own small transportation company in Denmark, found out in March he wasn’t allowed to stay in the Scandinavian country where he has lived as a refugee since 2014, as Copenhagen now considers it safe for Syrians to return to Damascus.

His wife and three of his four children were also affected by the decision taken by Danish authorities.

Once the ruling was confirmed on appeal in late September — like 40 percent of some 200 other cases examined so far — Alkale and his family were ordered to leave.

READ ALSO: Danish refugee board overturns decisions to send home Syrians

They were told that if they didn’t go voluntarily, they would be placed in a detention centre.

The family has refused to leave.

Normally they would have been deported by now, but since Copenhagen has no diplomatic relations with Damascus, they can’t be. And so they wait.

Days and weeks go by without any news from the authorities.

In the meantime, the family has been stripped of their rights in Denmark.

Alkale can’t sleep, his eyes riveted on his phone as he keeps checking his messages.

“What will become of me now?” the 51-year-old asks.

“Everything is off. The kids aren’t going to school, and I don’t have work,” he says, the despair visible on his weary face as he sits in the living room of the home he refurbished himself in the small village of Lundby, an hour-and-a-half’s drive south of Copenhagen.

“All this so people will get annoyed enough to leave Denmark.”

For him, returning to Syria means certain death.  

“I can’t go back, I’m wanted,” he tells AFP.

And yet, he has no way to earn a living here.

“As a foreigner staying illegally in Denmark, your rights are very limited,” notes his lawyer Niels-Erik Hansen, who has applied for new residency permits for the family.

In mid-2020, Denmark became the first European Union country to re-examine the cases of about 500 Syrians from Damascus, which is under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, saying “the current situation in Damascus is no longer such as to justify a residence permit or the extension of a residence permit”. 

The decision was later widened to include the neighbouring region of Rif Dimashq.

Despite a wave of Danish and international criticism, the Social Democratic government — which has pursued one of Europe’s toughest immigration policies — has refused to budge.

READ ALSO:

The Alkale family is considering leaving for another European country, even though they risk being sent back to Denmark. 

Alkale’s oldest child was already over the age of 18 when they arrived in Denmark and therefore has her own residency permit, currently under review.

Of the three other children, only the youngest, 10-year-old Rawan, still has the carefree ways of a child.

Majed, 14, says he’s “bummed”, while Said, 17, who was studying to prepare for professional chef school, says he now has no idea what his future holds.

Only a handful of Syrians have so far been placed in detention centres, regularly criticised for poor sanitary conditions.

Asmaa al-Natour and her husband Omar are among the few.

They live in the Sjælsmark camp, a former army barracks surrounded by barbed wire and run by the prisons system since late October.

“This centre should disappear, it’s not good for humans, or even for animals. There are even rats,” says al-Natour.

READ ALSO:

 The couple, who have two sons aged 21 and 25, arrived in Denmark in 2014.

“My husband and I opened a shop selling Arabic products, it was going well. Then I decided to resume my studies, but now everything has just stopped,” says al-Natour, who “just wants to get (her) life back.” 

“Going back to Syria means going to prison, or even death, since we’re opposed to Bashar al-Assad. He’s a criminal.”

Niels-Erik Hansen, who also represents this couple, says his clients are being “held hostage by the Danish authorities.”

The government is trying “to spread the message that ‘in Denmark, we almost deport to Syria’,” he says.

Amnesty International recently criticised Syrian security forces’ use of violence against dozens of refugees who returned home.

Danish authorities meanwhile insist it’s safe for Syrians to go back.

“If you aren’t personally persecuted … there haven’t been acts of war in Damascus for several years now. And that is why it is possible for some to go back,” the government’s spokesman for migration, Rasmus Stoklund, tells AFP.

Some 35,500 Syrians currently live in Denmark, more than half of whom arrived in 2015, according to official statistics.

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