General Chat

On Sky news the reporter went on a refugee boat from Turkey to Lesbos. She interviewed a heart surgeon from Damascus fleeing with his wife and 3 children. How bad must it be for him to take that risk?

As Benedict Cumberbatch said yesterday, "No one puts children in a boat unless the boat is safer than the land."

I think I saw on the news that some were being thrown food parcels, if that isn't enough to degrade those poor people even more and causes riots and injury, I don't know what is. No wonder they want to move in as soon as they can.

Lizx

Ration books would be better. The problem about that is that they/the majority don't want to be registered in Hungary.

I'm not entirely sure how we'd cope in a similar situation. Imagine 8000 people arriving uninvited at one of our ports. It would probably take us at least a week to sort out enough shelter and food.

Whilst I'm very much against these people being sent to the UK, I'm also against the way they're being treated in Hungary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34216883

If there's a shortage of supplies then surely ration books would be better than this

Most of my British friends are very nice too. ;-)

My son lived in Turkey for a year he was fine :-D :-D

Most Turks are very nice :-D

Ann, my friend and her daughter have just come back from a holiday in Turkey and they were ok. They stayed close to the hotel at night instead of going out so much. (My friend is in her 40s and her daughter early 20s)

Lizx

I was in Hama, Syria 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_Islamic_uprising

The sort of terror that goes in the middle east and other areas where ISIL is attempting to put down roots is on a different scale altogether to pinprick bombings etc in Bali, Turkey, Northern Ireland, France, Spain, England and so on. Flee if you can is the only real option.

Peace can mean something very different to some people to what you or I understand. The jihadists believe that "peace" can only be achieved through submission to god's will as expressed in a series of wildly harsh edicts. Most muslims of whatever stripe don't believe in this diabolical nonsense either and have few options. "Standing up" to the De'esh is a non-starter or even giving them a dirty look.

As things stand De'esh will establish a de facto regime of terror from Aleppo to Mosul while the Russians protect their client in Damascus and Tartus. The west would be stuck with as many as 10 million refugees.

A realistic if unpalatable option would be to throw our hand in with the Russians and Assad working with them to destroy the terrorists. That could at least result in a state that refugees could return to though probably even less democratic than before as well as badly damaged. Of course such a policy would hardly be workable without a resolution in the Ukraine.

As it stands nothing the west is proposing is workable either on removing Assad, De'esh or allowing refugees to live a normal life. And then there is the vexed question of selling war refugees and taxes to EU populations.

Giant problems pygmy leaders apart from Frau Merkel who is the only leader so far to have shown capability and honour.

fwiw my cousin owns and runs a hotel in Turkey. She is fully booked.
:-)

That's why the refugees are leaving. They aren't empty threats in Syria.

Everyone in this world, no matter how badly behaved, deserves at least a bit of sympathy & affectionate good will.

Fine to be contemptuous from a place of safety, we can all do that, but when you live on the front line, as lots of people did, and now do, it's less easy to be so brave and very easy to be terrified.

The threats from IS are meant to terrify us as were the threats from the IRA, I treat both with equal contempt.

I know that is sensible and I am sure she will be fine but it was just a fleeting thought. She is in a tourist area on a group holiday.

We visited London quite a lot in the 70s Llynda and were there a couple of times when there were bomb scares but it didn't stop us going.

Ann, there are troubles all over the world.I was in Sri Lanka when there were bombings, in Oxford Street when the Wimpey bomb went off, family were in the vicinity of London when the July 7th bombs went off, although we were caught up in these incidents, we never saw a thing. Turkey is a big place, tourist areas are well guarded. If your daughter felt unsafe, I'm sure they would be on a plane home.

I'm also sure if you put into google "Riots in Norfolk" something will come up. We can't lock ourselves up, we need to be cautions, but we also need to live.

Don't worry Ann :-D

Sorry Ann :-( But like most tourists most places she will be safe I'm sure.

It's a large country Ann. Get the map out to see where she is v the reported incidents.

'safe places' for European tourists to visit seem to be contracting month by month. Mind you, those of us in say London lived through various bombing outrages and in the main got on with our lives.

OH I wish I had not seen that. Our daughter is on holiday in turkey this week. :-(

Turkey was and is not a safe option, it was mentioned as such on the other thread as being ok'd for travel by the Foreign Office advice, a comment which was accurate in so much as this line applies

"Over 2,500,000 British nationals visit Turkey every year. Most visits are trouble-free
which states"

but that is not the same as saying somewhere is "safe" per se, or indeed that one would be "safe" living there if one were a refugee


"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advise against all travel to within 10 km of the border with Syria.

The FCO advise against all but essential travel to:

the remaining areas of Sirnak, Mardin, Sanliurfa, Gaziantep, Kilis and Hatay provinces
Siirt, Tunceli, Diyarbakir and Hakkari provinces."

"There is a high risk of terrorism...

There is a high threat from terrorism. On 19 August there was an incident involving gunfire and a sound grenade in an attack on Turkish national police guards stationed outside Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul. On 10 August, 2 people opened fire outside the US Consulate-General in Istanbul. On 27 July there were reports of possible threats to public transport in Istanbul, in particular the metro stations at Yenikapi, Taksim, Osmanbey and Haciosman and stops on the Metrobus line.

Be vigilant, monitor media reports and keep up to date with this travel advice.

The terrorist group DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front) has launched a series of attacks in Istanbul in 2015 targeting the Turkish police and judiciary. On 5 June, two people were killed and many injured by an explosion at an HDP rally in Diyarbakir. On 9 June, 4 people were killed in an attack in Diyarbakir. You should exercise caution.

Border crossings into Syria and nearby locations have also been targeted. On 20 July, a suicide bomber killed 33 people and injured over 100 others in Suruc, Sanlurfa. See Terrorism and the FCO’s travel advice for Syria"

And this his has been added since I read it the other night

"Latest update: Summary – large demonstrations have occurred in Adana and Mersin in September 2015 associated with hostilities between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces in south-east Turkey"

Yes, it does, rather.

....and when you learn that their real surname is Shenu, but Kurdi had been used in Turkey because of their ethnic background, it puts a new slant on things....