On the Turkey-Syria border, the chef and restaurant owner Ebru Baybara Demir is using gastronomy to give skills and hope to vulnerable Turkish and Syrian women. Continue reading How a Mardin chef is giving hope to Syrian refugees
Turkey is home to four million refugees – mostly Syrians – along with Arab activists, journalists and political figures. Continue reading How Turkey became a hub for Arab Spring exiles
Firas al-Ali, a former player for Al Shorta and the Syrian national team, has lost friends, family members and his home in the violence that has engulfed Syria. Continue reading The Syrian football star caught up in revolution and forced into refuge
REYHANLI, TURKEY – Grasping the bed sheets, Abu Staif braced against the pain as he lifted and lowered his weight-strapped right leg. The knee is swollen and there’s a large chunk missing from his lower leg but painfully, painstakingly, he is getting better – thanks to a new mobile physiotherapy unit in the Turkish town of Reyhanli. Just over a year ago Abu Staif, now … Continue reading How a mobile physio unit is helping wounded Syrian refugees to walk again
As the fourth anniversary of the Syrian uprising passes, reduced support is pushing some Syrian families in Egypt towards dangerous choices. CAIRO – “This place was full of life,” says Jan Abaza, coordinator of the Souriyat Association, as she walked through the empty rooms of the social centre for female Syrian refugees in Heliopolis, Cairo. Until last week Souriyat’s centre echoed with the sounds of … Continue reading Syrian refugees in Egypt struggle amid UN funding crisis
Hossam Assad, a 42-year-old Syrian refugee, says his family lives for Fridays. “This is his favourite time of the week, going to football training,” Hossam tells Al Jazeera, gesturing to his eight-year-old son, Abdullah, as they walk through the noisy, crowded Cairo neighbourhood of al-Tawabeq. “Coming home from football training is his worst time of the week.” The rest of the time, daily life is … Continue reading Syrian refugees in Egypt: The Assad family
In her recent book, Sex and the Citadel, Shereen El Feki writes about the increasing scourge of impotence afflicting Egyptian men. El Feki discusses the widely held view that Egyptians’ wilting willies may be down to an Israeli plot, whereby secret agents are deployed throughout the country equipped with belts that emit radioactive waves, or something, that dampen the ardour of unsuspecting Egyptians. It has nothing … Continue reading Egypt’s Epidemic of Nonsense
Writing by Patrick Keddie 