Blog

Interview with Dr. Mohamed (Abu Jafar) Kahil, founder and chief medical examiner of the Forensic Authority in Eastern Aleppo.

Aleppo Municipality in regime-held areas has opened and moved cemeteries of victims killed by the regime since the bombardment of Eastern Aleppo districts, four and half years ago. From July 2012 until December 2016, the regime displaced the entirety of eastern Aleppo’s population, estimated by one million and a half. After more than two years, not more than a fifth of the displaced have managed to return.

As part of a research by The Aleppo Project[1], we interview Dr. Mohamed Kahil on the (re)burial of those who have been killed and the conditions in which the Forensic Authority in Aleppo was established. Being an expert in forensics and founder and chief medical examiner of the Forensic Authority, he talked to us about the challenges of documentation during burial and the procedures for dealing with unidentified bodies. We discussed regime’s attempts to rebuild some public parks while moving the relics without media coverage in order to conceal their crimes, and the difficulty this poses for the displaced to recognize the bodies of their families. We drifted to discuss the efforts to commemorate the anniversary of some massacres done by the regime.

Introduction:

The question of refugees’ return is one of the major issues addressed in conflict resolution literature. People usually flee to the nearest safe location at the time of conflict because when refugees abandon their homes, they hope to return as soon as possible. That is why the question of refugees’ return is inextricably linked to geographical proximity. For this reason, countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are hosting the majority of Syrian refugees.[1] in the Middle East, while countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda are hosting large numbers of African refugees. This blog will focus on the case of young Syrian students who arrived in Lebanon after the uprising in 2011 and still live there. Specifically, it will address challenges and barriers that prevent these refugees from returning home and will examine the Lebanese reaction to the presence of these Syrian refugees.

Abdulrahman Bakr’s thesis on the redesign of the Saadalah Al-Jabri Square in Aleppo bears mentioning. Bakr graduated from Szent Istvan University’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism with a Master of Arts in Landscape Architecture (MLA). In particular, his discussion of the square’s historical importance for Aleppo, which included compelling photographs and maps from the 1920s, was especially informative. It would have been ideal, however, to have placed the current condition of the square in an equally detailed context, particularly when mentioning the 2012 bombing. Nonetheless, we wanted to highlight Bakr’s creative envisioning of a revitalized square through a two-phase design process.  The first phase focuses on providing temporary solutions and structures for the square, including the construction of gathering areas, an outdoor exhibition, and mobile tree planters comprised of recycled materials.  Significantly, Bakr’s proposal encourages civic participation in the square’s design process, which would afford the local community an opportunity to create their own urban furniture. The second phase of his innovative renewal design proposal features a creative new design approach, which seeks to connect the public park to the square through the construction of a water rill that connects to the Quweiq River.

See Abdulrahman Bakr’s thesis here

See more of Bakr’s designs here

The Syrian crisis is about to enter a new phase with the increasing tension among the conflicting parties shaping the future of the country. The northern province of Idlib awaits a bleak fate, despite the deal that Russia and Turkey brokered; the city will inevitably be destroyed unless the international community stops Assad’s military. Although the armed conflict occupies the spotlight in the media, the war economy and managing the investments in Syria is equally important. Consequently, the relevance of the law to the recent events and changes on the international stage shows Russia’s intention to put an end to the war and to cooperate with neighboring countries to send refugees back to Syria and find a way to solve the situation in Idlib with minimum media coverage. Then Putin declares the end of the Syrian crises, the beginning of the reconstruction of cities and resettlement of Syrians not only from Idlib and neighboring countries but also from the EU.

SYRBANISM SURVEYS PROPERTY TYPES IN SYRIA TO ASSESS THREAT NEW REGULATION POSES TO DISPLACED OWNERS

Interview with Edwar Hanna

In April 2018 Syria issued Law 10, which sets guidelines for the creation of development zones over existing urban areas. The law stipulates the re-allotment of property, within set timeframes, in preparation for reconstruction. Experts are warning that Law 10 discounts the majority of the residents of areas destroyed during the war, who have been forcibly separated from their homes.

I interviewed Edwar Hanna of Syrbanism about a survey the group has launched which aims to understand the typology of property in Syria and the different ways owners of each type will be impacted by the new law. Syrbanism is an urban initiative founded in 2017 by Hanna and fellow Syrian architect Nour Harastani, „to support oppressed Syrian residents against urban injustices.”

Nora Palandjian, a former research intern for the Shattuck CCNR, worked with Bellingcat on this policy report as part of her Applied Policy Project at the School of Public Policy at Central European University. As a completion of her studies, she was required to design and carry out a policy project for an organization with two other graduate students. This team was also supervised by Cameran Ashraf and Marius Dragomir, two professors at the School of Public Policy. Her Applied Policy Project team collaborated with Bellingcat, a well-known investigative journalist organization that has previously written extensively about Syria. The center is pleased to announce Nora and her team’s hard work on the coordination of networks that surround the Syrian conflict.

This paper was presented at the fourth Lemkin Reunion, held in February 2018 and organized by the Shattuck Center at the School of Public Policy, Central European University in Budapest. The paper is based on research carried out by the authors in 2017 at the Shattuck Center’s Aleppo Project.

As of March 2018, 384,425 Aleppians remain internally displaced inside Syria with 62,970 residing in Idlib governorate. This portion in Idlib represents 16.3 percent of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) from Aleppo. The approximately other 83 percent that was displaced by the conflict relocated inside of Aleppo governorate (70 percent) or Ar-Raqqa (13 percent). [1] This report focuses on the residents of Aleppo that are displaced within rebel-held areas, specifically Idlib governorate. These IDPs face the most difficult barriers to return to their homes in eastern Aleppo, a regime-held area. Their current conditions are insecure with continued violence in the region and little economic security. They live in dire conditions with makeshift and rented houses. They have limited access to healthcare and education facilities for their children. Despite being on Syrian territory only a few kilometers from their home they are not able to return.

As part of its annual Lemkin Reunion, The Shattuck Center on Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery at CEU’s School of Public Policy hosted in Budapest the 4th Lemkin Reunion. The topic was on displaced Syrians and the obstacles to return, with a panel discussion with:

Basel Aljunaidy, Director of Orient Policy Center, Gaziantep

Senay Ozden, Cultural Anthropologist, Hamisch Syrian Cultural House, Istanbul

Ugur Ümit Üngör, Associate Professor of History at Utrecht University and the Institute of War and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam

Radwan Ziadeh, Senior Analyst at the Arab Center, Washington DC

Moderated by Martin Kahanec, Acting Dean of the CEU School of Public Policy and the Shattuck Center

We will be publishing papers from the Lemkin Reunion that can be found on the in the Papers section of the website here. This video features interviews with Senay Ozden and Basel Aljunaidy.

Learn more: ccnr.ceu.edu