Yasser and Mahmoud, two cousins aged 12 and 10, respectively, stop at the entrance of the central mosque in Gaziantep as others hurriedly step inside for early morning prayer on the eve of Eid-ul-Adha, the Muslim holy feast of sacrifice.
Wearing shabby trousers and faded shirts, Yasser and Mahmoud arrange locally produced candies and chocolates in medium sized cartons. They station themselves at two different doors of the majestic mosque to attract customers。
“I will take home my mother’s favorite sweets and some apples,” says Yasser, whose family of eight migrated from the Syrian town of Latakia 10 months ago. His father, Radwan Hassan, preferred not to live in a refugee camp set up in Gaziantep, a booming industrial city in southeastern Turkey, instead opting to live in an abandoned building with a caved-in roof。
Hassan is teaming up with a local butcher to slaughter animals and make some money. The boys don’t know where Hassan is for the Eid prayer。
Mahmoud was recently orphaned after his father was killed by a sniper in August. Hassan, Mahmoud’s uncle and Yasser’s father, brought him and his mother along with them to Turkey。
Yasser and Mahmoud briskly walk to a bakery and buy a kilogram of baklava. Carrying their bounty, the boys walk for half an hour to their impoverished neighborhood。
They enter a dilapidated, two-story building. The family sleeps in a 20-square-foot room devoid of windows. Four mattresses, one wooden bed, three chairs, and countless flies fill the humid and cold room. The toilet has neither a door nor a roof。
Hassan’s wife, Noura, has prepared adas, a typical Syrian lentil soup, and boiled rice for breakfast and lunch。
“Unlike last year, I can’t cook mansaf (meat and rice with almonds) and serve my family with ka’ek (a traditional sweet). Whatever we eat here is not charity, but my husband and sons earn it with their hard work,” she explains with pride。
Dressed in gray scarf and black abaya, she says her children have two sets of clothes and only one pair of shoes each。
Noura, who used to be a nurse in a private Latakia hospital, had never imagined that her children wouldn’t wear new clothes on Eid. Amina, her one-year-old daughter, has a cold. Her skin looks pale and dry, and she’s alarmingly underweight. The temperature here often falls below freezing。
As the infant cries for milk, Noura pours lukewarm Turkish black tea down her throat with a spoon。
“My breast milk dried, probably due to lack of good food and our testing circumstances. We can either feed the entire family or provide her formula milk,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks。
Before the family left Latakia, one of the country’s few pro-Assad cities, both had lost 16 close family members either to air raids or artillery fire。
“Prior stepping out of my home, I had laid only one condition before my husband. And he accepted: That we won’t beg for our shelter and food. We won’t live in camps, but earn our living,” Noura said。
“Forget about this Eid, we will slaughter a sheep next year as we always did,” Mahmoud said. For many Syrians, this is their second Eid-ul-Adha in a foreign land。
Indifferent to the gloom, 6-year-old Omer and 5-year-old Usman play with balloons and stuffed toys outside. Though none of the children attends school, Mahmoud’s mother Raabia teaches them basic math and Arabic handwriting。
“I keep myself busy as it helps me forget the tragedy of losing my loving husband,” Raabia said. She wondered aloud when President Obama would eliminate Bashar al-Assad for them. Mahmoud responded, “America won’t help us, mom。”
This Eid-ul-Adha, the war in Syria is even deadlier—neither of the parties announced a ceasefire, unlike in past years. At dawn, Assad’s warplanes pounded the suburbs of Damascus, and the Free Syrian Army responded with rocket fire. Other regime attacks killed three children in Hama and in the Ghouta district of Damascus. Since March 2011, more than 115,000 people have lost their lives in Syria, including about a thousand in chemical weapon attacks。
Imad al-Shami, 35, is another Syrian who defected from his government office and took a flight to Istanbul with his wife and two children more than a year ago. Unlike Gaziantep, Istanbul has little room for non-Turkish-speaking job hunters, and Shami has been unable to find work。
“I over-estimated my prospects before leaving Damascus. Istanbul is a very expensive city with cut-throat competition for jobs,” he said。
Shami’s family lives in an extra parking garage that belongs to a Turk businessman. Compared to Hassan's home, his situation is relatively secure—the family has hot and cold water and a toiled about 50 meters from the garage. Still, they are mostly dependent on handouts。
Shami recounted the horrible situation back home. “Many cities under Assad’s siege have run out of food. Local muftis have issued fatwa (religious decrees) that people can eat cats and dogs to survive,” he explained。
Owing to grim ground realities, the UN has revised its Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan, doubling its estimate for refugees to 4 million, and 6.8 million for internally displaced persons, by December。
In Yalova city, a three-hour drive from Istanbul, locals help the Shami family with food and clothes. Sometimes, he gets work on construction sites. His children get free education in a Turkish public school, even though they only speak Arabic。
Though the family continues to suffer, a Turkish real estate developer has promised him a job right after the Eid holidays. Meanwhile, he is applying for asylum in Australia and Germany, two countries where Syrians see prospects for a normal life。
As the conflict intensifies, Istanbul’s parks and uninhabited areas have attracted Syrian refugees at a faster pace. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the region’s most consistent sympathizer with the Syrian uprising. The country houses over half a million registered refugees, not including unregistered families such as Shami’s。
“The day Erdogan is not there in the government,” Shami said, “Syrians may not sleep with peace of mind。”
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古尔邦节(即穆斯林神圣的宰牲节)前夕，正当人们纷纷匆忙走进加齐安泰普的中央清真寺进行清晨祷告的时候，一对年龄分别为12岁和10岁的表兄弟亚赛尔和穆罕默德却在门口停了下来。
他们穿着破烂的裤子和褪色的衬衫，整理着几盒当地生产的糖果和巧克力。他们分别站在庄严的清真寺大门的两边，希望能够吸引来顾客。
亚赛尔说：“我回家时会给妈妈带些她最喜欢吃的甜食和苹果。”亚赛尔一家八口十个月前刚从叙利亚拉塔基亚市的一个小镇搬到这里。他的父亲拉德万•哈桑不想住进加齐安泰普(土耳其东南部一个新兴的工业城市)当地设立的难民营，于是选择在一栋屋顶塌方的废弃大楼里安顿了下来。
哈桑靠和当地一个屠夫合伙屠宰动物来挣些钱。他的儿子亚赛尔根本不知道宰牲节祷告时他在哪里。
穆罕默德的父亲八月份被一名阻击兵杀害，穆罕默德成了没有父亲的孤儿。他的叔叔哈桑(即亚赛尔的父亲)一家搬到土耳其的时候便把他和他的母亲一起带了过来。
亚赛尔和穆罕默德迅速跑到一家面包店，买了一公斤果仁蜜饼。他们抱着果仁蜜饼犹如抱着奖赏，走了半个小时才到达他们贫穷破烂的小区。
他们走进一栋荒废的二层小楼。全家人都睡在一间20平方英尺的房间里，里面还没有窗户。房间里潮湿阴冷，只有四张床垫、一张木床和数不尽的苍蝇。厕所既没有门，也没有顶。
哈桑的妻子诺拉已经做好了adas(一种叙利亚常见的的扁豆汤)，煮了米饭。这就是一家人的早餐和午餐。
她充满自豪的说道：“今年和去年不一样，我做不了手抓饭(在杏仁米饭里加入肉)，也不能给家人做ka’ek(叙利亚一种传统甜食)。但是所有我们吃的东西没有一样是别人救济的，全都是我的丈夫和孩子们辛苦工作赚来的。”
诺拉头戴灰色头巾，身穿一件黑色长袍。她说她的孩子每个人只有两套衣服和一双鞋子。
诺拉曾经是拉塔基亚一家私人医院的护士。她说自己之前从来没有想到孩子们会在宰牲节当天没有新衣服穿。她一岁的女儿阿米拉得了感冒，皮肤看起来即苍白又干燥，体型严重偏瘦。当地的温度经常会降到零度以下。
婴儿哭的时候，诺拉就用汤匙往她的嘴里送一勺温热的土耳其红茶。诺拉说：“可能是因为食物中的营养不够，加上环境也差，我已经没有奶水了。如果喂孩子配方奶粉的话一家人就得挨饿。”讲着讲着诺拉的眼泪便流了下来。
拉塔基亚是叙利亚支持阿萨德的少数几个城市之一。在哈桑和诺拉一家离开拉塔基亚之前，他们两人各有16位近亲属丧生，不是因空袭死亡就是因炮轰死亡。
诺拉说：“在离开拉塔基亚的家之前，我只对我丈夫提了一个条件。而他也接受了。这个条件就是我们不乞求别人施舍住所和食物。我们也不住在难民营，要自己养活自己。”
穆罕默德说：“还是忘记今年这个古尔邦节吧，明年的古尔邦节我们就能像过去那样宰头羊了。对很多叙利亚人来说，这是他们在异国他乡过的第二个古尔邦节。
六岁的欧米尔和五岁的乌斯曼丝毫不理会家里的阴郁气氛。他们在外面玩气球和毛绒玩具。家里的孩子都没有上学，不过穆罕默德的母亲瑞比亚教他们一些基本的数学运算和阿拉伯语言书写。
瑞比亚说：“我让自己忙起来，这样我就能忘掉失去我爱人的痛苦。”瑞比亚大声发问，美国总统奥巴马什么时候才为叙利亚人民消灭巴沙尔•阿萨德政权。穆罕默德则回答到：“妈妈，美国才不会帮我们呢。”
今年的古尔邦节当天，叙利亚国内的战争进一步恶化——与往年不同，战争双方都没有宣布停火。黎明时，阿萨德一方的战斗机捣毁了大马士革的郊区，而叙利亚自由军也以火箭炮予以回击。其他的政权袭击造成哈马市和大马士革Ghouta区的三名儿童遇害。自2011年3月以来，叙利亚有超过11.5万人民丧生，其中有大约1000人死于化学武器袭击。
另一位35岁的叙利亚人伊马德•沙米，一年多前背离了政府机构，和妻子还有两个孩子坐飞机来到了伊斯坦布尔。和加齐安泰普不同的是，不会讲土耳其语的人在伊斯坦布尔很难找到工作。沙米就一直没找到工作。
他讲到：“离开大马士革之前，我高估了我的发展前景。伊斯坦布尔消费很高，而找工作的竞争也很残酷。”
沙米一家住在一个土耳其商人的宽敞的停车库里。和哈桑的家相比，沙米的情况就相对有保障的多了——家里有热水和冷水，距车库50米左右处就有一个厕所。尽管如此，他们大多数情况下还是靠救济品生活。
沙米重新估量了回叙利亚后面临的可怕情况。他表示：“由于阿萨德的袭击，许多城市的食物都吃光了。当地的穆夫提颁布了伊斯兰教令，允许人们吃猫狗来充饥。”
鉴于叙利亚严峻的现实形势，联合国修订了其对叙利亚的人道主义援助应急计划。截止到10月份，对难民数量的评估比之前增加了一倍，达到了400万，国内流离失所人员则达到680万。
在距伊斯坦布尔三个小时车程的亚洛瓦市，当地人会帮忙给沙米一家一些食物和衣服。有时候，沙米还可以在建筑工地上找到活儿干。虽然只能说阿拉伯语，他的两个孩子仍然得到了土耳其一家公立学校提供的接受免费教育的机会。
目前沙米一家的生活依然很苦。不过一个土耳其房地产开发商已经许诺在古尔邦节假期过后给沙米一份工作。同时，沙米正在申请去澳大利亚或德国避难。叙利亚人认为他们可以在这两个国家过上正常的生活。
随着叙利亚冲突的加剧，伊斯坦布尔的公园和无人居住的地区吸收叙利亚难民的速度越来越快。土耳其总理埃尔多安是这一地区始终对叙利亚叛乱表示最大同情的领导人。土耳其政府已经为50多万登记过的叙利亚难民提供了住所，其中还不包括像沙米一家这样的未登记的家庭。
沙米说：“哪一天埃尔多安不当总理了，叙利亚人可能也就无法再睡安稳觉了。”
