The suffering of Syrian refugees in Turkey is exacerbating day by day as a result of the major economic crisis afflicting the country, in addition to the growing hate speech against them.

During the last period, many municipalities launched campaigns to remove advertisements and shop signs written in Arabic, and the authorities launched major security campaigns to deport Syrian refugees to northern Syria under the title of "voluntary return".

Last month, the Turkish Ministry of Defense said in a statement that more than a million Syrians had returned "voluntarily, safely and dignified" to their homes, including more than 470,000 people who returned to the city of Idlib.

On its part, the Turkish Minister of Interior promised that "the number of Syrian refugees will decrease significantly within 4 or 5 months."

Syrians represent the largest number of refugees on Turkish territory, with 3 million and more than 395 thousand Syrian refugees residing under the "temporary protection" system, according to the latest update of the statistics of the presidency of the Turkish Immigration Department.

Many of them expected that Turkish President Erdogan's victory in the presidential elections last May would put an end to the opposition's threats to deport them, but it seems that it did not turn out that way.

Today, a great state of frustration and anxiety prevails among refugees and deported Syrians.

I'm not from Tal Abyad, and I don't know anyone here

At eight in the evening, Salim closed his small carpentry workshop in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Istanbul.

On his way back home, he was arrested by a Turkish police patrol, and although he showed them the temporary protection card (Kimlik), he was transferred to the deportation center near the area.

Salim found himself detained there with nearly a hundred people. After several days, the person in charge of the center told them that they would be deported, and everyone was forced to sign papers for "voluntary return" to the Tal Abyad area exclusively.

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The young man in his thirties is currently spending time with many people who share his tragedy. They think about their families behind the border, unable to do anything. In this context, he told Al Mayadeen English, "I am from the countryside of Aleppo, and I do not know anyone here in Tal Abyad. We tried to enter the areas controlled by SDF in the countryside of Al-Hasakah, but they opened fire, wounding and arresting many of us. As we tried to cross into Turkey again, the gendarmerie shot us too. Smugglers also take advantage of people's needs, they raised the price of human smuggling to nearly 2,000$."

Turkish authorities claimed that they have provided the "voluntary returnees" with apartments that were built with Qatari and Kuwaiti support.

However, in reality, many of these people did not receive anything, according to Salim, who concluded his speech angrily, saying, "They hand over these apartments to the militants and their relatives. As for us, no one is interested in our fate."

The last solution… a tent

"I just have to bite the bullet." With these words, Abdul Qadir Arab describes his condition after his deportation from Turkey to Idlib.

After the Turkish authorities demolished his earthquake-damaged house in Gaziantep, Abu Jamil temporarily took refuge in one of the shelters that "dealt with us according to a discriminatory policy in favor of the Turkish population," he told Al Mayadeen English.

He had to look for a house for rent, but he was shocked by the skyrocketing prices, as "the place whose monthly rent value did not exceed 4,000 Turkish liras, its rent doubled to 8,000."

There was nothing left for the 50-year-old man at that moment but to move to another state that was not affected by the earthquake in order to search for work and shelter, despite the risks that this step entailed.

Only one day after Abdul Qadir's arrival with his family members to Istanbul, a security patrol arrested them, and then the Immigration Directorate transferred them to the deportation center, despite the fact that they had a temporary protection card known as "Kimlik" from Gaziantep.

The man explained what happened to him, saying, "They did not allow us to take any of our personal belongings, not even our money, they took us to a police station, and from there to the Asian part of Istanbul. We were detained in police custody until the morning, and then transferred us here."

All the way to Idlib, which he had not visited since he left six years ago, Abdul Qadir Arab was thinking about one issue, How will he live? And with whom will he deal in areas whose administration is shared by multiple factions of militias?!

It seems that finding a house for rent was not that easy in Idlib either. Idlib, which was not affected by the earthquake, was an overcrowded area with a displaced population, especially since high buildings and upper floors are no longer desirable for housing.

Today, Abu Jamil's family lives on humanitarian aid provided by organizations, after he spent the little savings he had considering that he was working in Turkey with no insurance and receiving meager wages on a weekly basis.

The man, who is from Maarat Misrin, had no choice but to build two tents on the outskirts of an agricultural land, at the west of the city, next to his brother's tent.