The women of Damascus and its countryside live in terror in Denmark

Copenhagen

- The Danish authorities are still subjected to a large wave of internal and external criticism, and European human rights, parliamentary and political pressures, over their decision to return Syrian refugees to their country after Denmark classified Damascus and its countryside as "safe places".

The decision of the Danish authorities sparked a state of terror among the Syrian refugees for fear of facing an unknown fate by the Syrian regime and its security services, if they were forcibly deported to Syria.

Al Jazeera Net followed the stories of a number of Syrian women, and monitored the story of their asylum in Denmark and their suffering due to the authorities' decision there, and their fear of being forcibly deported to Syria.

Samar Farra

The fiftieth year, "Samar Al-Farra", was born in Daraya in the countryside of Damascus, where she married, had 4 children, and worked in her city's hospital, until she left for Denmark in 2015 with her children to join her husband through the family unification law.

Samar applied for asylum 2020 in order to separate her file from her husband’s file, and after conducting an interview with the Immigration Department, which lasted about 9 hours, the decision came to reject her asylum, and she was informed by the Immigration Department that the areas of Damascus and its countryside are safe, to be granted after 15 days to leave Denmark in exchange for a sum Financial.

Samar’s tragedy is that her children reside in Denmark, and all her family members live in European countries, and she has no breadwinner in Damascus, in addition to the unknown fate that awaits her there if she is forcibly deported and handed over to the Syrian regime.

Samar told Al Jazeera Net about the state of terror she is experiencing for fear of being deported, and she hopes to stay near her children in Denmark to support her as she gets older.

Nadia Al Masry

As for Nadia Ahmed Al-Masry, 43, she hails from the governorate of Daraa in southern Syria, but was born in the city of Damascus. However, the Danish immigration authorities treat her file as being from Damascus and not from Daraa.

Nadia arrived in Denmark in 2015, without a breadwinner or children, and she relies on a sister named Mona who then arrived with 3 of her children to Denmark in the same year (2015), tracing the trails of Samir Al Suwadani, Mona's husband, in 2014. At that time, Nadia felt safe.

However, in 2021 the authorities withdrew the residency of Mona and Samir and their daughter Hebatullah (19 years), based on the same government decision, which prompted the family of her sister Mona to go to Germany in search of a safe place, but they are waiting to be handed over to the Danish authorities based on the Dublin Agreement.

As for Nadia, she obtained a protection residency known as (3/7) for the year 2016, and she had to renew the residency every year.

And in 2020, the renewal was refused, and then the residence permit was withdrawn.

And throughout the past period, Nadia has been working and paying taxes to Denmark, and learning the language of this country, just like the new immigrants.

However, the court upheld the decision of the Immigration Service to revoke Nadia's residency "because she was not integrated into Danish society" and that she had to return to Damascus because she was now safe.

Nadia left Denmark in search of a safe country, arrived in the Netherlands, and in 2021 she was extradited to Denmark according to the Dublin Agreement.

She is currently living in a refugee camp, sharing a small room with others, until the expiration of a deadline given to her by the Danish authorities in order to cooperate for voluntary return to Syria, and when the deadline expires, she will be transferred by police intervention to a closed camp, pending the implementation of the deportation decision to her unknown fate.

Nadia revealed to Al Jazeera Net her great fear and state of terror over her fate and the fate of her two sisters and her family, which is inevitable at the hands of the Syrian security services if they are handed over to them.

manal welding

Manal Al-Lahham, 41, arrived in Denmark with her two children in 2015. She obtained temporary residence (3/7) and learned and mastered Danish and her children.

In 2019, she submitted an application to extend the residence permit, and the decision was not to renew and reject it, to vacate the house that the authorities granted her, and to stop the financial aid granted to her and her children, which also means that she will not be able to obtain a work permit, and then forcibly deported to Damascus.

Manal worked to separate the file of her son, who has reached the legal age, from her file, which made it easier for him to obtain residency.

As for the young child and his mother, they move from one place to another, and from one house to another, in search of a decent living, awaiting an unknown fate.

The response of the Danish authorities

In

order to obtain clarification from the Danish authorities about these humanitarian cases and the legal measures to be taken, Al Jazeera Net contacted officials in the Immigration Department, who only said that its decision was based on reports from humanitarian and refugee organizations.

In its response, this department confirmed that it had an assessment that the general conditions in Damascus and the Damascus suburbs governorate had changed dramatically over a long period of time, and that the danger no longer existed in that area.

This is happening despite the fact that Amnesty International (Amnesty) issued a report entitled "You are going to die" in which it documented what awaits the returnees to Syria.

"The Syrian authorities generally consider individuals who have left the country to be supporters of the opposition or armed groups," Amnesty said in its report.

It also documented 24 cases of returnee men, women and children who were subjected to rape or other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and torture.

For months, Al Jazeera Net has tried to communicate with the Ministry of Justice, the Presidency of Parliament and Danish parties demanding the deportation of Syrian refugees to respond and comment on the accusations against them, and on the mechanism for implementing the decision, but it was not able to meet with any official in those parties.

The case of Manal, Samar, Nadia, Mona Wahbatullah and other hundreds of Syrian women, and their refugee families to Denmark, remain awaiting an unknown fate if they are handed over to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.