‘For being Syrian’: Xenophobia fuels refugee killings in Turkey

ISTANBUL — Hussein Omar Azouz did not want anybody to get hurt. Following the advice of the manager of the fruit and vegetable shipping company where he worked cutting iron in Turkey’s southern Mersin province, on October 7 the 42-year-old warned other workers to stay away for their safety.

The request rankled one Turkish worker, who responded saying Azouz was just a Syrian, with no right to give orders. An argument broke out, and the manager ultimately intervened to say he was the one who made the recommendation. 

It seemed the problem was settled, but later the same day, the Turkish worker gathered a group of around 15 friends and attacked the blacksmithing workshop where Azouz and four other Syrians worked. Again, the manager intervened and threw out the attackers, Azouz’s brother recounted to Syria Direct, asking not to be named for his safety. The following day, the manager suspended work at the company in an effort to contain the situation. 

The next evening, a group of Turkish youths attacked the workshop again, this time with knives and pistols. Azouz, a father of three, was stabbed several times and killed, his death adding to the toll of a series of xenophobic attacks on Syrians in Turkey.

Syrian refugees in Turkey increasingly live in fear of being attacked or deported, particularly in the wake of anti-Syrian riots over the summer and sweeping deportation campaigns that followed, especially from Istanbul and Gaziantep. 

For Azouz, those fears were realized as he performed the evening prayer on October 9. In the deadly attack, he suffered “a deep stab wound in the side, and several stabs to the head,” his brother said. “Two other Syrians were injured with him, when they tried to defend themselves.” 

Following the incident, a deportation order was issued for the two survivors, “since they were involved in the problem,” but was suspended on October 14 “after a media uproar,” Azouz’s brother added. “They returned to Adana, where the blacksmith shop was.”

Azouz’s family, originally from Aleppo, has hired a lawyer to follow up on his case. His Turkish manager has also filed an independent complaint against the attackers, who are being held pending investigation. “We are waiting for the judiciary to rule on the murder of my brother, who lost his life for no wrongdoing, except for being Syrian,” his brother said. 

Hussein Omar Azouz, 42, in an undated picture widely circulated on social media after he was killed on October 9.

The Mersin Forensic Medicine Directorate’s report lists Azouz’s cause of death as a workplace injury, without mentioning details of the incident or indicating that it was due to a crime by another party. Syria Direct obtained a copy of the document from Taha al-Ghazi, a human rights activist who specializes in Syrian refugee issues in Turkey. 

A copy of the report on Hussein Omar Azouz’s death provided to Syria Direct by activist Taha al-Ghazi.

Less than a month before Azouz’s murder, 15-year-old Abdullatif Ali Dawara was sitting with friends at a public park in the Gaziosmanpaşa district of Istanbul when two masked youths pulled up on a motorcycle and opened fire, killing him. 

His father, Ali Dawara, received a call on the evening of September 21 telling him his son had been shot four times and taken to the public Başakşehir Hospital. “Three hours later, he lost his life. The doctors could not save him,” Dawara’s father told Syria Direct by phone. 

Refugees originally from Aleppo, the Dawara family moved to Istanbul in February 2023 following the devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria at the time, killing around 50,000 people on both sides of the border. Abdullatif’s mother and sibling were among the dead. 

In Istanbul, Abdullatif worked at a sewing workshop to help support his family, and had no trouble with anyone at work or elsewhere, according to his father. Still, it appears he was killed deliberately. When the shooting began, Abdullatif tried to escape with his friends, but “was hit by two bullets in the leg and waist,” his father was told by witnesses. “When he tried to crawl away, one of the attackers fired two bullets into his head.” 

With the help of Syrian activists, Ali has hired a lawyer to follow up on his son’s case. So far, “we haven’t seen any real activity,” he said. “I fear the case has been closed.” 

In a statement published by the local Halk TV channel four days after the murder, the Istanbul Police Directorate said it had arrested two 18-year-old suspects and three involved individuals. Two unlicensed pistols and a motorcycle were also seized, according to the statement. The police suggested the attack could be related to a past dispute with the Dawara family but did not provide additional details. 

“The investigation into the context of the case is ongoing, and the criminal court will set a date for the first hearing of the trial,” lawyer Omar Tash, who visited the Dawara family with a delegation of human rights activists on October 27, said. 

Abdullatif Ali Dawara, in an undated picture his father provided to Syria Direct. (Ali Dawara)

Limited efforts

Over a span of less than five months—from the start of July to mid-November—Syria Direct monitored the killing of eight Syrians by Turkish citizens. The latest, at the time of writing, was Mahmoud Rahmani, a 20-year-old stabbed to death in Adana province on November 15. 

Other victims included Hani Qasim, a 23-year-old stabbed in the city of Bursa on September 2. Muhammad Moushma, a 38-year-old jeweler, was shot and killed in Istanbul on September 4. 

On August 28, 10-year-old Amir Baki was shot by a greengrocer in Gaziantep, allegedly for making noise while playing in the street. On July 2, 17-year-old Hamoud Hamdan al-Nayef was killed when a group of Turks broke into the apartment where he lived with other Syrian workers. Eight others were injured, beaten and stabbed in the attack. 

Naya Safan, a 23-year-old Syrian woman, narrowly escaped death after she was shot by a young Turkish man in Istanbul on the evening of September 17 for refusing to marry him. 

“Racist crimes against Syrians are seeing a noticeable uptick,” Sinan Bayanouni, the coordinator of Himaye [Protection], a legal support project launched by the Civil Society Organizations Forum in August 2023, told Syria Direct. He cited “cases that reach the project, and observations monitored on social media or through the team’s field visits.” However, “there are no official statistics” documenting all cases, he added. 

Naya Safan in an undated picture that went viral on social media after she was shot and injured by a Turkish man for refusing to marry him. (Social Media)

In response to attacks on Syrians, efforts to combat them appear timid and isolated, several sources told Syria Direct. 

Activists like al-Ghazi, who works to support Syrians in Turkey and combat hatred and discrimination against them, take two approaches in their own efforts, he explained. 

The first approach is “coordinating with Turkish human rights bodies and organizations, as well as lawyers from the Turkish Bar Association in all cities with a dense Syrian population,” he said. They “file cases against all those who incite hatred and racial discrimination, even politicians and leaders of some [political] parties,” he added. These figures include Tanju Özcan, the mayor of Turkey’s northern city of Bolu, Ümit Özdağ, the leader of the ultranationalist opposition Victory Party, and Eli Aksoy, deputy president of the center-right opposition Democrat Party.

The second approach consists of “organizing meetings with figures in political parties affiliated with the government or opposition,” aimed at “conveying the reality of Syrian refugees in Turkey, far from media stereotypes,” al-Ghazi said. These meetings have led to “relatively acceptable results, and changed the rhetoric of some Turkish opposition politicians,” he said. 

At an institutional level, there are a number of Syrian entities supporting refugees, including the Himaye project. Himaye aims to solve refugees’ legal problems by “increasing legal awareness among refugees, establishing effective mechanisms to receive and solve their problems and [conducting] professional case documentation,” Bayanouni, the project’s director, said. 

Other bodies include Solutions Table—a group of organizations and academic figures concerned with Syrian affairs in Turkey—and the Syrian-Turkish Joint Committee affiliated with the Syrian National Coalition.

The Solutions Table works to “cooperate with Turkish rights institutions to open cases through Turkish lawyers and communicate with those concerned with Syrian public affairs,” Mahdi Daoud, its general coordinator, told Syria Direct. The group also “holds workshops with Turkish institutions, especially media institutions, to avoid the circulation of misleading, racist news that aims to sow discord between the Turkish and Syrian peoples,” he added. 

To limit crimes against Syrians, “there needs to be greater coordination between the SNC, as a political institution, and the Turkish government and opposition,” Ahmad Baccora, coordinator of the SNC’s refugee working group, said. He also called for “greater efforts by the Turkish government to protect Syrians and implement strict legislation criminalizing hate speech and racism,” alongside “comprehensive policies to promote peaceful coexistence, social integration and respect for human rights, far from exploiting the refugee issue for political goals.” 

Rising xenophobia

Turkey’s relationship with the millions of Syrians residing within its borders has changed since 2019. As the country fell into an economic crisis, hate speech against refugees soared. Syrians have also found themselves used by various parties as political tools in Turkish elections, as well as in relation to Ankara’s agreements with the European Union (EU). 

In turn, Turkish authorities have launched several deportation campaigns targeting Syrians illegally present in the country. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his victory speech following the 2023 presidential elections, renewed his promise to return one million Syrians to their country. 

“Economic challenges, such as inflation and high unemployment, played a role in increasing feelings of resentment against Syrians, blaming refugees for economic and social crises,” Bakoura said. 

Together, these factors create fertile ground for an increase in hate-driven attacks, “not only against Syrians, but against Arab tourists, which cast a shadow over tourism activity this year and last year,” al-Ghazi said. 

“Syrians’ problem is no longer limited to hate speech and discrimination, but also a lack of social acceptance,” al-Ghazi added. While social rejection of Syrians by their Turkish neighbors may not necessarily lead to xenophobic incidents, it ultimately creates an environment of “ostracism and incitement against Syrians,” he said. 

Turkey’s Directoration of Migration Management released a statistic on October 3 noting the number of Syrians in the country had fallen to around 3.1 million, down from 3.7 million in 2021. According to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, more than 715,000 Syrian refugees returned to their country between 2016 and 2024. 

Turkish judiciary

While many Syrians are frustrated with Turkish government policies that they say fuel—or do not adequately combat—discrimination, “the judiciary does not discriminate between victims as refugees or citizens,” Mersin-based Syrian lawyer Ghazwan Koronfol said. The same penal code that “applies to Turkish citizens also applies to anyone residing in Turkey,” he told Syria Direct. 

Turkish courts “have issued rulings that were consistent with due process in multiple racist murders of Syrians,” Koronfol stressed. However, it may take a long time “for the perpetrator to be found guilty and the investigation into the surrounding circumstances to be complete,” he added. 

However, Turkey’s judicial system faces challenges when it comes to hate-fueled killings of Syrians, namely “political influences and social pressure from sectors opposed to the presence of refugees,” Salaheddin al-Dabbagh, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist said. Al-Dabbagh was deported from Gaziantep to Syria in August 2022, reportedly in connection with his legal advocacy for Syrians. 

The role of the media, as well as the social and political influence of the local community, cannot be minimized, al-Dabbagh said, as it can lead to “a kind of inaction in investigating or bringing perpetrators to justice.” The full application of the law depends on “the authorities’ willingness to seriously deal with racist crimes, the pressure of public opinion and the judicial authorities’ commitment to strictly enforce the law,” he added. 

Article 82 of the Turkish Penal Code stipulates a higher penalty for murder when there are aggravating factors, al-Dabbagh said. Article 122 criminalizes forms of discrimination due to hatred of hatred “based on differences of language, race, nationality, color, gender” and beyond. 

“For my part, I have always believed, and continue to believe, in the justice of the Turkish judiciary,” activist al-Ghazi said. He pointed to the March 2024 imposition of three life sentences for Kemal Korkmaz, a Turkish man who burned three Syrians to death in Izmir in late 2021. 

Other perpetrators have also faced legal accountability. On May 6, the Second High Criminal Court in Kilis sentenced Hüseyin Bucak, a Turkish citizen, to life imprisonment for the April 2023 murder of Ghina Marjamak, a nine-year-old Syrian girl. On June 24, the Izmir High Court also imposed a life sentence for the August 2024 killing of Syrian Muhammad Yasser Alati, and injury of his coworker Hussein Dahmash, by Mehmet Şerif Çelik.

Koronfol denied rumors circulating that Syrians could be deported if they file a legal complaint against a Turkish citizen for assault or discrimination. However, “legal abuses sometimes happen, by the migration directorates and police, such as a policeman being racist,” he said. 

Syrians who have been deported in this context could have a separate issue with their identification documents, “such as confirmation of a residential address or temporary protection card [Kimlik]” and risk deportation on those grounds, not for filing a complaint, the lawyer added. 

However, this was not the case for the two coworkers of Hussein Azouz who were initially ordered deported after they were attacked. “The deportation order may have been issued because they were part of the incident, before the case was finalized,” Bayanouni of Himaye said. “Once an investigation is opened in which a Syrian is a party, a deportation decision could be issued prior to the results of the investigation.”

Bayanouni pointed to “the existing powers of the enforcement bodies, which make the decision based on the security institutions’ assessment, such as that the individual poses a threat to community peace and security.” Such an assessment “may be based on a suspicion, a counter-complaint or a case filed with the courts that has not yet been decided,” he added. 

Foreigners “may face deportation in a case in which they are later acquitted, because their rights are weak,” Bayanouni said. As a result, many “fear turning to state institutions to resolve their problems or defend them.”

Additionally, Syrians may “be afraid to disclose an attack, for fear of a new attack,” journalist Qusay Amama said. “There are murders of Syrians that do not reach the judiciary, or if they do reach it, the victim’s family was not informed,” he told Syria Direct, citing violations he covered while working with Orient News from 2022 to 2023. Amama was deported from Turkey in August 2024. 

For the families of Hussein Azouz, Abdullatif Dawara and other Syrian victims, there is little they can do for now but wait as their loved ones’ cases wind through Turkey’s justice system, hoping that the killers will be held accountable before too long. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.