(Eqtsad)- In the market of Carsi in the Turkish border city of Gaziantep, customers are astounded by the sparkle of the well-arranged pieces of gold exhibited in shop windows, but the moment you enter one of the Syrian shops you are confronted with the feeling of longing left by those Syrians who passed through, as this was one of their last stops before they headed to European countries.
“We have used and clean gold,” and why did they sell it then, the jeweler laughs as he spreads out the piece, “they paid with it the price for the smuggling to the European countries.”
The jeweler tries to draw your attention to a necklace that looks like it has just been made, “look at this as it is almost new, its owner was attentive not to wear it a lot, she only wore it when she went to wedding celebrations.” The owner of Hajji Idris and Mathloum for jewelry added to Eqtsad, “the sadness was apparent on her face when she sold it to me, but as she said to me, she had to sell it because her husband wanted to migrate.”
The price of buying used or second hand pieces of gold goes down to about 2.5 Turkish Lira per gram, and according to the jeweler it is one of the attractions of buying used gold.
According to the jeweler the percentage of Syrians coming to sell is a lot higher than the percentage of customers buying, clarifying this he said, “the length of the Syrian crisis, the lack of indicators of its close end, pushes Syrian refugees who are suffering economic difficulties to head to European countries, so they sell everything they have to provide the financial sum needed to make the long and costly journey to countries of asylum.”
In turn, a different Syrian jeweler talking to Eqtsad took us back to a period of time three years ago with his word, “when we started work here, our movement of buying used gold was not this grand, but the scale has increased gradually,” indicating that some people have been forced to sell the gold they had to pay for their daily needs and not necessarily to pay for their travel.
Reporting by Mustafa Mohamed; Translation by Rana Abdul)
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