FRANCE/FILE: Syrian and Afghan refugees in Paris want to rebuild their lives

Record ID: 274603

  • Title: FRANCE/FILE: Syrian and Afghan refugees in Paris want to rebuild their lives
  • Date: 20th June 2014
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (JUNE 19, 2014) (REUTERS) SYRIAN REFUGEES PREPARING FOOD MOZZARELLA AND BASIL PUFFS BEING FRIED IN PAN VARIOUS OF KITCHEN ACTIVITY PANS ON CHAIR (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYRIAN REFUGEE NATACHA DARWISH SAYING: "We would like people here to know something about Syria. We are not terrorists. We have something good and nice in this life, like any nation. So maybe w
  • Embargoed: 5th July 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADK8TU72RON7X2BJH4ZHZCBIK9
  • Story Text: Mozzarella and basil puffs sizzle in a frying pan, as a pomegranate is peeled in preparation for a feast - a group of Syrians who would rather be in their homes in Damascus, are instead cooking at a community kitchen in Paris to mark World Refugee Day on Friday (June 20).
    More than 50 million people were forcibly uprooted worldwide at the end of last year and Syrians fleeing the escalating conflict accounted for most of the world's 2.5 million new refugees last year, UNHCR said on Friday.
    About 2,800 Syrian refugees have come to France between 2011-2013, according to the UNHCR, and some say though they feel safe from the horrors of the war back home, daily life in the country isn't that simple.
    Finding a roof is a struggle, refugees often face long and tedious administrative procedures - but thanks to humanitarian organisations in Paris which have taken them in, they have found a little bit of comfort and solidarity.
    28-year-old Natacha Darwish used to live in Damascus with her husband and baby son and has been living in Paris for the past few months after having fled the bloodshed in Syria.
    As she chopped vegetables for the meal, she said she wanted to show the people of Paris the happy, festive side of her culture, rather than scenes of terror and misery.
    "We would like people here to know something about Syria. We are not terrorists. We have something good and nice in this life, like any nation. So maybe we want to show all people here the Syrian food, our traditions. We like dancing, we like music, like any people. Because all the world think all the Arabs are Islam, terrorists and like this and hijab (Islamic veil) and all... No, no, no, no, we are all like this," she told Reuters Television.
    Darwish said returning to her country wasn't on her agenda until Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in power - she would stay in Paris for the moment.
    As the conflict in Syria enters its fourth year, further east, tensions continue to simmer in Afghanistan.
    Poet and women's rights activists Husna Anwari, who came to Paris from Afghanistan four months ago, now lives in France as a refugee.
    She fled her country to flee societal pressures after she had a relationship with a man who wasn't Muslim and to avoid being forced to marry someone else.
    She has left behind her family but she said today poetry allows her to express herself and that she has found freedom and peace in France.
    "I'm alone here but I'm not alone because of my thoughts, my ideas, my books, all these people, all these organisations that I'm working with. For example, they are many refugees from other countries, refugees from Syria, from Afghanistan. We can find some people that they are not just normal refugees, they are refugees, but they have a lot of think (sic) in their minds, they are so great. They have their own ideas, their own philosophy," she said.
    "We have freedom here, we can say our message. We can even protect our life, we can say, we can bring changes to our life. And by our thoughts, by our message we can change even those people, those women or those humans that are living out of this country. I mean in our country (Afghanistan), we can change their life," she added.
    Afghans make up the world's largest refugee population - with some 9,000 having come to France between 2011 and 2013, according to the UNHCR.
    Thousands, who are not as fortunate as Anwari, live in make-shift camps at the ferry port of Calais in north east France hoping to make the journey across the channel to a better life in Britain.
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