Istanbul's rain is heavy burden on Syrian homeless

By Lama Shammas;Ttranslation by Yusra Ahmed

ISTANBUL(Zaman Al Wasl)- “Mercy” is the nickname of rain in Turkey, and this year, they wait for it to save them from Syrian beggars, who spread in many Turkish cities.

Jam, a Shawerma shop owner has to leave his work many times to tell beggars to go away and leave the display window of his shop.

Jam is not the only one who expresses his negative feelings toward the Syrian beggars, but most of Turkish people have started to get fed up of the phenomena.

Jam wishes winter to come sooner to do its job and eliminate begging problem.

Fouad, an activist, noticed that numbers of beggars who sleep in Turkish cities’ roads have increased coinciding with the beginning of summer, and the highest number of them gathers in Gazi Park that Turkish opposition used for protesting before.

Fouad carried on saying: “rain has not stopped for two days, which led to collective departure of Syrian beggars from the park, who used to spend night in it, to be able to reach to “Independence Street” in the morning at the time of morning rush hours.

The activist expects that Istanbul could face hard winter which may lead beggars to find new methods for begging instead of sleeping in streets and parks.

“Many official decisions were issued recently, unfortunately none of them has been implemented yet” the activist added.

The activist explained that Turkish police and authority tolerate Syrian beggars according to agreed norms. He told an incident of a Syrian girl who annoyed a tourist and pulled her dress, which led her to complain to the police who just apologized to the tourist and did nothing to the girl.