Canada's Wannabe Jihadi-Wives

"With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spend $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals."

"The fact that these items were purchased for those detained as alleged terrorists is appalling in itself."

"[The opposition is] calling for the committee to be immediately recalled to launch a full inquiry into this matter."

Conservative Party letter to federal government 

 

"Such spending raises serious questions about government priorities, public trust, and the integrity of our system."

"[The return of foreign fighters who left to join terrorist groups should prioritize public safety], not reward those who betrayed their country and broke the law."

"[We are] deeply troubled [by the] extravagant homecoming [the women received]."

"Victims’ families have had to pay their own way to attend legal proceedings related to the terror suspects accused of killing their loved ones."

"The stark contrast between how our government treats perpetrators and how it treats their victims should alarm every Canadian and offend every taxpayer."

Sheryl Saperia, CEO, Secure Canada 

 

"[ISIS] still poses a significant threat via its network of provinces, affiliates, related loose online networks, and due to its ability to inspire Canada-based threat actors to commit serious acts of violence."

Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

 

"The Liberal government needs to be held accountable for the way it throws away our money and wastes hard earned tax dollars, giving rewards and luxuries to people who betrayed our country."

"We want to make sure that we’re getting to the bottom of it so this money can’t be wasted in the future."

"[The women should be asked to repay the costs of their repatriation]. They made the decision to go and join and marry into the worst terrorist network in the world, and they should pay the full costs of getting back to Canada."

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre  

The Al-Hawl Camp, where most of the families capture during the fight against ISIS are detained.

 

When the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was in its expanding Caliphate heyday, a number of Canadian women travelled to the Middle East to reach Iraq and Syria where their steadily expanding empire was located, answering the call to jihad, to link up with the  terrorists as wives to produce children they called the 'lion cubs' of ISIL jihad, and to take part in the propaganda aimed at Western audiences in their bid to inspire more Muslims abroad in the diaspora to respond to the call of jihad.

 

Once the Islamic State lost their momentum of terror-inspired power, when the Kurdish Peshmerga aligned with U.S. and Western military forces began to gain the upper hand, wrenching territory back from their grasp, and eventually defeating the Islamic State whose members were either taken prisoner or escaped elsewhere to attempt to restore their caliphate mission elsewhere, recruit among Muslims in Africa and Afghanistan, rearm and inspire terror once again, Kurdish forces undertook a temporary imprisonment of foreign Islamic State fighters, creating a separate prison for their women and children.

 

The U.S. state department reported in 2023 that 14 countries including Canada repatriated 3,500 citizens, and overall, about 7,000 family members of foreign fighters representing 30 countries were brought back to their countries of origin. More than half of those held in the Kurdish-guarded prison camps were under age 12; the U.S. bureau of counterterrorism warning that if they remained they would be vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, likely fuelling a resurgence in the Middle East. An argument that spurred Western nations to reluctantly repatriate their wayward citizens.

 

Thanks to the federal Access to Information law, an investigative journalist, Stewart Bell with Global News was able to reveal that Canada's Liberal government used over $170,000 of taxpayer funding to retrieve a handful of Canadian women and their children who had gone overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Costs for hotel bills in Montreal were included for the returnees and their government escorts. When the details were revealed, Parliament's Conservative opposition called for an expenditures investigation.

 

Expense reports released under Access to Information Act on costs of repatriating Canadian ISIS women and their kids. Global News

 

The initial round of repatriations completed in October of 2022, came with a cost of $10,863 when Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned. Polman faces charges of terrorism, while Chouay pleaded guilty a month ago to a charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. In April of 2023 the second operation incurred $132,746 in expenses that included government staff and the ISIS returnees. $20,331 went for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott Hotel at the Montreal Airport. That included room-service invoices and a $3,000 catering tab.

 

Four returning Canadian women, three of whom on arrival were arrested and their ten children comprised the returnees. Emontonian Aimeee Lucia Vasconez, married to two different ISIS fighters was in that group while Ammara Amjad also in the group was arrested and faces a charge of terrorism. One room cost $1,100 which included the original room cost of $638 and $95-worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87-worth of items from the hotel gift store that included chocolate, chips and over-the-counter drugs. 

 

A tip of $7 on  a $8 coffee came from that same room while $15-worth of children's ice cream was from another room, and a third had ordered drinks of white, red and sparkling wine at $25 each. Two $24 smoked meat sandwiches came from yet another room. Early July 2023 saw the third repatriation operation proceed, which cost over $27,500 when a government of Canada employee -- likely with Global Affairs -- expense-purchased snacks including goldfish and granola bars, and Timbits. In that operation, Montreal hotel rooms cost about $2,300. 

 

Two women from Edmonton, Dina Kalouti and Helena Carson were in that group; both sentenced to six-month peace bonds, required to continue counselling with the Organization for the Prevention of Violence. Needless to say, none of these operations began in Montreal; there was a journey from the Al-Hol camp in Syria to reach Montreal; the cost of the air flights were not included in the total expenditure figures released by Global Affairs through the Access to Information legislation. Nor the cost associated for government employees to fly out to Syria to escort these women and their children back to Canada.

 

Kimberly Polman is greeted by family members after being released from custody at provincial court in Chilliwack, B.C., on October 27, 2022. Polman was repatriated to Canada from a detention camp in Syria after marrying an ISIS member. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

 

Primitive Tribal, Sectarian Slaughter in Syria

"This was one of the biggest massacres during the Syrian conflict [killings of Alawite civilians]."

"They killed every man they encountered."

Rami Abdurrahman, chief, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

 

"After they killed the father and his boys, they asked the mother to take her gold off, or they would kill her."

"There’s no water and no power for more than 24 hours, the factions are killing anyone who appears in front of them, the corpses are piled up in the streets. This is collective punishment."

Latakia resident

 

"[France condemned what they said was violence targeting] civilians because of their faith."

"[The French foreign ministry also urged Syria’s authorities to make sure that] independent investigations can shed light on these crimes and that the perpetrators are sentenced."

French statement 

 

"...The indiscriminate firing on everyone including paramedics, was like something from the previous Assad regime."

"They did not have any mercy, so we are against any violence against anyone in the Syrian coast who has not been involved in this unrest."

"All of them are civilians and they are all like our family."

Sunni civilian witness

 

"Thousands have chosen to surrender their weapons and return to their families, while some [Assad loyalists] insist on fleeing and dying in defence of murderers and criminals."

"The choice is clear: lay down your weapons or face your inevitable fate." 

Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani, Syria defence ministry

Syrian forces head to Latakia after heavy clashes were reported  Reuters

A thousand Syrians are said to have died in the latest clashes taking place in Syria. Assad Alawite loyalists have stormed villages with the intention of targeting men of the majority Sunni sect, while gunmen loyal to the current government stormed three villages close to the Syrian coast killing men there, in the villages of Sheer, Mukhtariyeh and Haffah, according to Syrian war monitor British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

 

"They killed every man they encountered", Rami Abdurrahman, chief of the Observatory said, in reference to gunmen killing residents belonging to Syria's minority Alawite sect, aligned with former Alawite President Bashar al-Assad. Women and children were left unharmed in the three villages after the men were summarily executed. 

 

In the village of Mukhtariyeh, according to Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, men were separated from women and children, and shot to death. In Sheer and Haffah, similar occurrences took place. Bodies were left lying in the streets. People were terrified of venturing out of their homes, homes where their own men were killed when gunmen went through apartment blocks to knock at doors asking what sect lived in each apartment. 

Funeral of four security forces members in clashes with Assad loyalists March 8, 2024, AP

 An unnamed security official was quoted by State news agency SANA saying that after attacks by forces loyal to Assad left police dead, large numbers of people streamed to areas along the coast "in what led to some individual violations and we are working on stop[ping] them". Updated figures raise the total number of people killed by clashes between government forces and fighters loyal to Assad since conflict broke out on Thursday, to 1,000 dead.

 

Damascus dispatched reinforcements to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus overnight, and along to nearby towns and villages in areas representing the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect, his base of support, in an effort to bring the situation under control,according to state media outlets. The surge in violent action represents the worst since insurgent groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over the country.

 

Growing concerns after deadly clashes across SyriaMore than a thousand people, mostly civilians, have died during fighting between government forces and supporters of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.  REUTERS/Karam al-Masri 

There have been occasional sectarian attacks since then against minority Alawites, despite the new authorities in Damascus pledging they would not permit collective punishment or sectarian vengeance to occur. Alawites held top positions in the army and security agencies, under Bashar al-Assad. His loyalists have been accused by the new government of attacks in recent weeks against the country's new security forces.

 

A curfew was imposed on Latakia and other coastal areas where Friday morning saw large numbers of troops engaged. Security force members describe minor clashes in city neighbourhoods but that most of Latakia was calm, under government control. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdurrahman on the other hand, described the outskirts of the coastal towns of Vaniyas and Jableh remaining under control of Assad loyalists, along with Qardaha, Assad's hometown. 

Fighters with the new Syrian government load a rocket launcher on Friday in Baniyas, Syria. Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between loyalists of the deposed Assad regime and forces of the country's new rulers. (Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images)

 

The Good Stock

"We have to grow considerably different things in considerably different ways."
"Certainly for our prime crops, like wheat, the wild relatives are thought to be really important because of the genes that can be crossed back into the wheat lines we have in order to build resilience and adaptation to climate change."
Tim Benton, food security expert, University of Leeds, Britain

REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri

With the rapid onset of climate change, the world of agriculture is challenged to make the most of arable land to produce enough food stocks to feed the globe, in recognition of the potential of a diminishing reliability on accustomed weather patterns, making some places too cold to grow seasonal crops and other places too arid and hot. Seed banks famously serve as vital repositories of biodiversity, all the more so that original and heritage seeds have been industrially altered genetically for traits that make them desirable to agribusiness.

Lost in the process of this industrialization leading to genetic engineering is biodiversity. Which translates to crops with little variance becoming more susceptible to moulds and bacteria and pests specific to single-type crops. Who might have imagined that a Syrian seed hunter would have been responsible in large part for collecting a vast inventory of primal-era seeds from the geographic area biblically known as the 'fertile crescent'? Stationed in that ancient citadel of human habitation, Aleppo, more latterly under violent siege by the government of Syria's military.

Ali Shehadeh made it his life's work to collect all manner of wild seed grains to achieve a herbarium reflecting seeds foraged from the Fertile Crescent region where agriculture is broadly known to have originally arisen. It is his mission to hunt the genes in the seeds planted in our modern era in their original natural packaging as "wild relatives" from bygone eras, to safeguard those original seeds in the hope they will be sufficiently hardy to feed future generations as more geographic areas of the world become inhospitable to agriculture.

Staff at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Torbol, Lebanon, sort through seed specimens delivered from the global seed vault in Svalbard, Norway. Photograph: Guardian

His organization, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), struggles to fulfill its function in view of the viral trifecta of food, weather and war. At one time the government of Syria supported ICARDA, though it failed to fund the enterprise based in Aleppo; interested in the research that promised to ensure Syria was self-sufficient in the production of wheat. However, the experiment drained underground water reservoirs and when a drought occurred, the protests that morphed into armed revolt of the citizenry against the Syrian government was launched.

Civil conflict erupted in 2011, and fighting threatened ICARDA's Aleppo headquarters by 2014. Its nearby field station became a casualty of civil war, its trucks stolen, generators as well, and most of the experimental Awassi sheep bred for increased milk production were stolen and used for meat. Along with the other scientists, Mr. Shehadeh managed to save a few sheep then saw no option but to abandon their field station, becoming refugees in exile, leaving behind their 144,000 seed bank varieties of the region's main crops.

Back in 2008 ICARDA had sent seed samples to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Then, later, ICARDA scientists set up a seed bank in Morocco and another one in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. "We are doing our best to recreate everything we had in Aleppo", explained Mr. Shedadeh of the headquarters adjacent the ancient city where the region's collection of wheat, barley, lentils, fava beans and other seeds have been stored.

Lebanon’s Bekaa valley offers a wealth of ecosystems — and now hosts a growing ICARDA seed bank.  Hussein Malla/AP

The region is seeing the occurrence of more droughts, more intensely and more frequently. In hot, dry countries of the Middle East, temperatures are becoming hotter for more sustained periods of time. Precisely what it is that motivates Mr. Shehadeh's obsession with the wild relatives of the seeds most planted by today's farmers. But rather than the genetically modified seeds, Mr. Shehadeh envisions the characteristics of their wild ancestors, better adapted to such harsh climates. "They're the good stock", in his opinion.

Casualties of Conflict

"My wife and I [each] thought that Amal was with the other. Many children were lost that day [post-bombing in Nawa, Syria]."
"My wife starting crying [at news that their child was not with relatives]. She just wanted to go back."
"If a motorcycle passes by our home, she [8-year-old child] comes into the room crying."
"The people are nice here [Cyprus], but it's difficult. Life in Syria is a thousand times better. ... Hopefully the war will stop and we'll be able to go back."
Jaffar Ismail, Syrian refugee, Nicosia, Cyprus

AP Photo/Petros Karadjias     Amal Ismail, 8, left, is seen with her older sister Alaa, right, 18-month-old Aryam, right rear, and mother Maha at the International Organization for Migration office in Nicosia, Cyprus. Amal was finally reunited with her family after she was mistakenly left behind by her parents when her southern Syrian town of Nawa was bombed two years ago.

 

A Syrian warplane had just bombed the southern Syrian town of Nawa in the neighbourhood where Jaffar and Maha Ismail lived with their two daughters, Alaa and Amal. Jaffar reacted to the falling bombs by running out in the street with his older daughter Alaa, unable to walk normally as a result of a congenital back problem. It seems that Maha was under the impression that six-year-old Amal was also with her husband, along with Alaa.

When they connected it became clear that little Maha was with neither of them. And somehow, in their panic, they reassured themselves that Maha was in all likelihood with one of their extended family members, so they fled with only Alaa. And the decision was made on the instant to vacate their town with the assumption that their youngest child was safe with Jaffar's parents or perhaps with one of his siblings who had sought haven in another village.

It's difficult to imagine, even in the panic of a bomb attack that parents would make such a decision; to move on without their intact family, leaving behind a vulnerable child of six on the assumption that she would be safe, that some one of their extended family who presumably with children of their own to take care of,  would have taken their younger daughter with them. But this is precisely what this father and mother did.

They crossed the border into Lebanon and in a several months' time-frame decided to go on to Turkey where they arranged passage on a boat to the northern coast of Cyprus. Once landed in Cyprus someone guided them to the south of the island. Eventually they contacted one of Jaffar's brothers back in Syria who informed him that the family was under the impression that Amal was with her parents.

Later calls to cousins led to the discovery that the wife of a relative had found Amal wandering in the street, and had taken her in. Eventually Mr. Ismail made contact with the International Organization for Migration and they put into motion the process of reuniting the little girl with her parents. Jaffar's brother brought Amal to the Syrian-Jordanian border to meet up with an IOM official who provided a Cypriot visa for the child.

In that two-year interim where Amal had been separated from her parents another baby was born to the parents. 

AP Photo/Petros Karadjias    Amal Ismail with her 18-month-old younger sister Aryam.

 

An Arabic-speaking woman escorted Amal on a plane to Cyprus and reunited her with her family. Reuniting the family had been no simple affair. The family like other Syrians seeking haven from the brutal conflict being fought by the Syrian regime against its own people, are given subsidiary protection in Cyprus which means that though entitled to rights afforded asylum seekers they are unable to bring family members to the country to join them.

This is when IOM Cyprus chief officer Natasa Xenophontos Koudouna stepped in to see that an exemption was granted the Ismail family after reviewing the case, enabling the reunion to take place. Father Jaffar mourns the loss of his carpentry shop, his three properties, his spent savings, but he yearns to return to Syria where life was "a thousand times better", than how the family is living in Cyprus, on a 900-euro-a-month state allowance.

Little Amal who still asks her father and mother why they abandoned her however, thinks otherwise: "I don't want to go back home", she states with the conviction of one who knows better.

Bashar al Assad's Sunni Citizens

"It was 7 in the morning. I was preparing breakfast for the kids. We heard the sound of government 
 warplanes flying over the town. Shortly afterwards, they started dropping bombs."
"Everyone in this house is depressed. We have lost weight. My sisters and my other brother have also been looking for jobs. But they are struggling."
Ahdaab Almajed, Syrian refuge , Mersin, Turkey 

"We observe an increase in criminal activities such as murder, kidnapping, and most importantly prostitution among Syrian refugees in Mersin."
Huseyin Kar, journalist, IHA news agency

"Syrian women come from a traditional and conservative society. It is an insult for a woman to work. So women do not have business or social lives. Naturally children are sent out to work."
"Although Turkish schools are free of charge, some families are so poor and helpless that they don't even know how to register their children to schools. Besides, some children are the household's primary breadwinners so they have to work."
Arzu Kaymak, Mersin University postgrad, public administration

"One Syrian teacher had a nervous breakdown today, which is a common thing here. She cried and collapsed. They need compassion."
"Syrian children are surprisingly more resilient compared to adults. They seem to have moved on."
Nupelda Akaslan, Turkish language teacher, Mezitli education centre

The view of Mersin from the top floor of the Green Tower "Grand Refugee" hotel.

Fabio Bucciarelli for Al Jazeera America

In Mersin, located on the east Mediterranean coast, approximately 350,000 Syrian refugees have gathered to live. That number of refugees is overwhelming for a city of one million people. Many Syrians arrive in Mersin viewing it as a launch point toward the boat journey across the Mediterranean, hoping to reach Europe and a new life. And then there are the single Syrian women with their children, struggling to cope with what fate has delivered them to.

A Syrian refugee observes the sea at the beach in Kiz Kalesi, around 60Km west of Mersin, while waiting to board a ship that will smuggle her to Europe.

Fabio Bucciarelli for Al Jazeera America

They feel lost and abandoned in a foreign country, and are harassed. They feel trapped in poverty, loneliness and fear, according to a United Nations report on their situation that also noted that in desperation some women become prostitutes to keep body and soul together. Sometimes there are few choices; whether to send their children to school, or out to work to help the family attain the necessities of life.

So Syrian children can be seen on the streets of the city, begging, collecting trash or selling things while others go to work in textile factories even though it is unlawful. Turkey has instituted a system of "temporary education centres" offering an Arabic-language curriculum, with eleven of those centres located in Mersin. One of the city's districts is called "Little Syria", Mezitli; the education centre located there is capable of accommodating 1,300 students taught Arabic, Turkish and English.

One of a number of charitable organizations established to help Syrian refugees, the Syrian Social Gathering was founded by Syrian businessmen in support of educating Syrian children. "We register Syrian refugees, visit them regularly, collect data, and introduce our services. We try to help poor families and make sure their children have access to education", explained chairman of the charity, Mohammad Zein.

People walk outside a private clinic operated by the Syrian NGO Syrian Social Gathering in Mersin, south of Turkey on March 10, 2015. AFP Photo

Even though school attendance is free and despite the attempts of the government and NGOs to enlist the children in schools that offer state-approved curricula, 75 percent of Syrian refugee children don't attend school for one reason or another. Medical centres have also been established for the Syrian refugees where both Turkish and Syrian doctors work. "The medical centres are very vital, but they are not adequate", feels Dr. Ful Ugurhan, president of the Doctors' Association of Mersin.

"Turkey is not experienced in handling millions of refugees. We could have handled the refugee crisis better Despite all difficulties, our society is still compassionate toward Syrians. At the moment, both locals and Syrians live peacefully without hurting each other. But locals are afraid Syrians will stay forever", observed Dr. Ugurhan. "Local people will then [post-Syrian-war] start to question and that's when the real problems will arise."

Coping With War's Consequences: Syria

"Most of them left either after their house was destroyed, or they had at least one or two close relatives or friends who died."
"We have people who have quite a lot of signs of stress, depression and so on."
Paul Yon, head, Medecins Sans Frontieres Lebanon mission

"In many ways, a migration like this is unprecedented ... the numbers could be staggering. [But] there are a lot of health-care workers who really want to contribute."
Dr. Meb Rashid, medical director, Crossroads Clinic, Toronto

"I saw a lot of Syrian refugees who came to Turkey and they did not receive what they expected in support ... They decided by themselves to go back to Syria, to areas in the middle of the conflict, putting themselves in 100 percent risk of death."
"They decided to do this rather than stay in a country that provided them with a safe environment, but no other type of understanding or support."
Mohamed Elshazly, International Medical Corps., California

Syrian refugees at a tent settlement in Al Ain, Lebanon. Photo by Nick Rice

The United Nations Refugee Agency has had its hands full attempting to cope with the myriad human needs of the greatest migration since the end of the Second World War, of people escaping conflict in Syria, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan primarily. Living there in their millions, in unfamiliar surroundings, familiarizing themselves with living with the bare necessities of life, mourning the loss of their comfort, their homes, their possessions, their security.

Some of these refugees will eventually return to their country of origin when the conflict which has entered its fifth year of a tyrannical government turning its military loose on its own civilian population in a brutal sectarian war that has pitted an Alawite Shiite autocracy against the majority Sunni population of the country, eventually, somehow comes to a conclusion. The Sunni Syrians did not take up arms against their ruling elite, what they did was to mount protests against their unequal treatment as citizens of the state.

Those protests engendered a response that no one could have anticipated in its raging brutality where every and all Sunni Syrians are considered by the ruling Shiite minority to be 'terrorists' whom the regime is justified in wiping from the face of the Earth. Various countries of the world have resolved to do what they can to absorb tens of thousands of the resulting refugees comprised of Sunni Syrians, Syrian Christians, and minorities such as Kurds and Yazidis, along with gays, targeted by all.

Huffington Post

This, apart from the Syrians who have left the country with no intention of settling anywhere but the wealthier of the European countries of their choice, enabling themselves with the use of human smugglers to find haven in particular areas, because they have the pecuniary means to buy that avenue of escape from Syrian bloodshed. The greater numbers of Syrian refugees living in sprawling camps in neighbouring countries haven't the means to buy their way into another country through migration.

Those countries like Canada that have stated a firm number of refugees they are committed to welcoming as new landed residents are anticipating both the burden and the responsibility of catering to the needs of people fleeing terror, leaving their homes behind. In Canada, medical providers know that they will be challenged by the needs the refugees will present. Refugees with war injuries, with chronic diseases under-treated for years, and those suffering from psychological stress.

Physicians and health clinics throughout the country have signed up as volunteers to lend their services to those in need. Although the medical system can hazard informed opinions relating to the kinds of medical services that will be required, until the reality presents itself when the refugees appear on Canadian soil and their needs begin the process of care, it is guesswork. It is evidently not infectious diseases that may present as a problem.

Refugees whose medical conditions have gone untreated while they have lived in countries like Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan likely will present with diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases having worsened during that period. Adults and children alike who suffered from the effects of both torture and bombs afflicting their bodies, who have never had adequate care, will also be expected to present with dire medical needs to be met.

Dr. Anna Banerji examines Noor-Zehra El-Maliki, who recently arrived from an Iraqi refugee camp in Turkey. (CBC)

But it is the psychologically afflicted that ae expected to represent the most significant area requiring immediate attention. Four in ten Syrians appear to be suffering some manner of transitory mental health symptoms, readily treatable. Insomnia, loss of appetite, depression, represent the loss that people have suffered and the horrors they have been submitted to. The state of helplessness and desperation, dependence on the goodwill of others for rescue from dreadful situations makes further victims of people.

"They are in desperate need of serious psychological help and support to overcome the trauma and the horror they have been through", stated a study releasing the findings of academics in Jordan who had interviewed Syrian migrants in that country. In particular, the child refugees suffering mental health problems will be a realized challenge. Of refugees treated by the International Medical Corps. 54 percent were afflicted with a severe emotional disorder like anxiety or depression.

Another 27 percent were treated for epilepsy, while 17 percent had a psychotic condition like schizophrenia. The high numbers were attributed to the belief that these figures are an over-representation, given that people in distress sought out treatment. In Canada, on the other hand, there is a belief that roughly five percent of the 25,000 Syrian refugees expected to arrive will require professional mental health treatment.

The best-case scenario anticipation is that existential stability, decent housing, community support and eventual integration assistance into Canadian society will diminish mental health issues that most people in such situations struggle with.

Gestures of Compassionate Humanity

"Of course, half a million arrivals and 3,000 deaths, by themselves are merely statistics. But when we think of what these statistics mean -- lives tragically lost and families separated forever from loved ones and unable to come to closure; education, careers and dreams abandoned...."
"We mourn for the victims and for our entire shared humanity."
William Lacy Swing, director-general, International Organization for Migration

"Europe is the baker in Kos who gives away his bread to hungry and weary souls. Europe is the students in Munich and in Passau who bring clothes for the new arrivals at the train station. Europe is the policeman in Austria who welcomes exhausted refugees upon crossing the border."
"This is the Europe I want to live in."
EU President Jean-Claude Juncker

The International Organization for Migration has stated that 522,134 refugees streaming toward Europe for haven through maritime arrivals have doubled the numbers seen the previous year. They also report that close to three thousand migrants have died or simply vanished in 2015, most suspected of having drowned in their perilous journey to Europe from their source countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The steady migration toward Europe, despite the dangers they face and the uncertain reception, and their knowledge of the dreadful fate that some among them have faced in the attempt, has increased in tempo, leaving European nations scrambling to try to accommodate their most immediate needs in recognition of the human tide that must be fed, given medical assistance, housed, transported.

Certainly the countries of Europe whose finances are strained are incapable of fulfilling the most basic of humanitarian functions migrants hope for on their arrival. Nor, for that matter, is their arrival greeted kindly, for their accommodation imposes a dreadful burden on the host country which has no wish to be a host country, with rare exceptions.

Europe is at odds with itself. A very finite number of relatively wealthy countries have offered themselves as exemplars of what a national consensus can achieve in welcoming the desperate and the weary; in some instances what an administration will commit to, despite the reluctance of the nation's people themselves. For the most part, however, with their resources strained by the sheer numbers of haven-seekers, there is little enthusiasm in Europe generally to greet the influx.

Enter ordinary citizens. Two young Swedish women have taken to approaching refugees at the main train station at Copenhagen to offer to sail them from Denmark to Sweden. Denmark is not prepared to open its arms to any more refugees or immigrants than it has already absorbed and for its pains, seen its demographics and its indigenous culture transformed, while Sweden's arms remain open.

In Croatia, one of the eastern European countries whose government has made it abundantly clear that they are not prepared to absorb any more refugees, people who fled their homes during the Balkan wars in the 1990s recall their anguish and now offer food to migrants. A Romanian student whose family had been forced by Soviet troops to abandon their home during the Second World War conceived of the idea to welcome Syrian migrants directly to his family home.

In Calais, one woman has established a service to local migrants living in nearby camps who remain in critical contact with their families and the world outside their refugee community through the use of their cellphones. It has been years since she first offered to charge their cellphones through an electrical connection in her garage; one small service that means volumes to those in need.

At the train station in Milan, volunteers have responded for the last two years to aiding migrants; bringing donations of food and clothing. One eleven year old girl brings homeless children paper and pens so that the children have the opportunity to write and to draw and to express themselves through the medium of another type of communication as an outlet for their depressed spirits.

Needless to say, the anguish of homelessness and statelessness is the result of massively dysfunctional states, all of them reflecting one thing in common; they are Islamic states. Islam is steadily devouring itself in a fierce battle of extremist fundamentalists whose fascist ideology of hard-line Islamist purity has been the cause of jihadist and sectarian violence, and particularly in Syria where 7 million Syrians have been internally displaced and another 4 million are now refugees.

If Islam could somehow pacify itself out of its violent internal rage, the Muslim world would be huge beneficiaries through fewer violent deaths, the international community would be less concerned over jihadist terrorism and floods of Muslim refugees, and nations that oppress their people and impose harsh conditions upon them, threatening their very existence, might reform themselves if their populations rose en masse rather than exit en masse.

All in the realm of wishful thinking.

A Bacchanalia Despite Conflict

"Today, it must be the most difficult wine to produce in the world and probably the most dangerous."
"We don't know where they [stray mortars] came from, but probably from a village around three kilometres away controlled by Islamic State kind of people. The situation is not great, we have to admit, but we have no choice but to continue."
"We have been lucky. We are in an area that is relatively preserved -- most of the time.
"Wine ties you to the land. You cannot just pack up and leave."
"Muslim, Alawite and Christian families [local wine estate workers], a little bit of everybody. The people who work at Bargylus are open-minded and have no issues with that [discrimination]. Most people want to live like (they) did before the war."
"The difference here is that we do it [winemaking] in the middle of nowhere."
"[This year's grapes are doing well] We had some frost, but we're OK and the next two months will be crucial."
Sandro Saade, Syrian-Lebanese Chateau Bargylus Estate co-owner

Brothers Karim, and Sandro Saade, pictured at Chateau Marsyas in Lebanon  Photo: bargylus.com

Crucial not in the sense that there are immediate fears that the war raging in Syria in so complex a manner as to absorb the regime's military against its Sunni-majority rebellious population asking for civil parity with the ruling minority Alawite Shiites -- where the battle rages as well with the addition of foreign jihadists, not the least of whom are associated with al-Qaeda, and the worst among them the expanding Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadis expanding their year-old caliphate -- but hopes for rain to perfect and finish to perfection the crop of grapes awaiting transformation to wine.

The winery co-owner brothers Karim and Sandro Saade live in Beirut, leaving the day-to-day operation of their estate to trusted staff administration. Their staff remain in touch with the brothers and with the approach of harvest time the brothers are required to taste the grapes to evaluate their maturity. For that purpose the fruit is transported on ice in a taxi across the Syrian border to Beirut, a four-hour trip.

"But there have been many cases when the taxi couldn't get through and had to go back and fetch a new batch, either because the border was closed or due to a security issue either side", said brother Sandro. Bottles, their corks and distinguishing labels take months to be imported from France. Once vinified and boxed, 45 days are required to transport the finished product to Antwerp, Belgium through Egypt's Port Said. The winery produces 45,000 bottles yearly, matching elite Bordeaux or California estates with techniques considered "close to biodynamic".


_{Chateau Bargylus is on the wine menu of Heston Blumenthal's Dinner in London, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing}
 
The brothers can wax poetic speaking of their wine; the reds mainly of syrah, with cabernet sauvignon and Merlot -- spicy "with a hint of black olives, a hint of black truffle in the mouth", Sandro recites rhapsodically. The pale whites are a mixture of Chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, crisp and citrus with "a lot of minerality and saltiness from the coastal wind". The price for those bottles average $49 for a red in Paris and $38 for a white.

The winery sees its product consumed mostly in Britain and Dubai, but Hong Kong and Japan are lining up as new markets. The Saades are a Christian family, a wine-growing history behind them. They planted grape vines in Latakia in 2003 before the government of Bashar al-Assad began mercilessly attacking its own population in Syria. A conflict that grew from non-violent street protests in 2011 to the brutal civil conflict that obtains to this day.

The Saade grandfather owned land in Syria for many decades. In a region traditionally and now increasingly hostile to the presence of Christians and other minorities. Where the winery is located are the coastal mountains which represent the heartland of Assad's Alawite community, the estate an hour's drive from the hometown of the Assad family. An explosion in nearby Latakia port last month is the closest that the estate has been to the conflict, a province that has been fairly well shielded from the war under protection of the Syrian military.

The risk of being kidnapped on the roads crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border has kept the brothers from travelling to their Syrian wine domain. The Domaine de Bargylus is comprised of 12 hectares of vineyards, northwest Syria. The area represents a heritage site of wine-growing dating back to the ancient Romans two millennia earlier. The estate produced its first vintage in 2006. The land is comprised of limestone, flint and clay terrain, and windy, not wholly amenable to being worked.

But the brothers take obvious and earned pride in their product appearing on the wine menu of London's finest restaurants, Michelin-starred establishments where a bottle of Bargylus is available to discriminating wine lovers. An availability that in and of itself given the situation prevailing where the grapes are grown and the wine is produced is nothing short of miraculous.

Pomp and Hypocrisy UK-Style

"I have no idea [why it has taken so long to study the issue of sexual violence as a war crime]. I find it abhorrent and it makes absolutely no sense to me that we know that girls are being sold into sexual slavery; that when a woman is raped she is forced from her community; that girls as young as nine are being married off."
"I cannot fathom why it has ever been all right to treat women this way."
Angelina Jolie, anti sexual violence crusader, special envoy UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Angelina Jolie meets displaced Iraqis living in an abandoned school in al-Qosh last month. Photograph: Reuters

"Crimes against women have been accorded a lesser priority throughout history. Sexual violence in conflict involves the deliberate targeting of women and children and men, in ways that often simply defy the power of description."
"[The world has entered a period] of systemic instability [where sexual violence is seen as an inevitable part of war]. Despite this, we always have to strive to do something else as the United Kingdom, and that is to try to improve the condition of humanity … We can overcome that feeling that it’s a hopeless matter, that you can never change it."
William Hague, former UK foreign secretary  

"This summit demonstrates there is a dangerous lack of joined-up thinking when it comes to tackling sexual violence against women. These are the same women. On one hand, you've got real progress being made in conflict zones overseas, but when those same victims make it to UK shores it's a completely different story. Women often aren't believed, and instead of being protected they're further traumatised by the asylum system. It's critical that the government tackles this issue with the same gusto at home as it's doing abroad and protects the survivors of sexual violence."
"Of course, it means often a woman won't disclose until far later and that is then used against her – 'why didn't she disclose at the beginning? She must be lying'. The lack of resources and gulf between policy and practice means there is some rank hypocrisy at work in the way we treat the very small number of women who actually make it to the UK."  
Anna Musgrave,  women's advocacy manager, Refugee Council

"It was very, very difficult. When you are a refugee, you think you might be treated kindly in the UK but ... they behave in the same way. Before I even told my story I was shouted at, screamed at: 'Why do you come here? Why did you sleep in a cardboard box on the street?'"
"You don't feel safe ever. The only basic humanity I have seen is from charities. The Home Office think I am a liar and they can come for me in the night, any time. I know what the officials are capable of. They say they want to save women from atrocities. I am that woman."
Refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo

Angelina Jolie and William Hague to co-chair Global Summit to End Sexual Violence. Photograph: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images

The London School of Economics has created and opened its Centre for Women, Peace and Security, and the grand opening featured two celebrities; one an actor and international women's activist, the other a former member of the UK Cabinet. This does represent the first and for the time being, only think-tank that has dedicated a specific area of research to women as sexual victims of violence and rape during conflicts. Presumably, the studies will reach back into ancient history, to the present when women then and now were seen as war booty.

Angelina Jolie produced several videos of her interviews with Iraqi women living in refugee camps. They have been posted online and make for some very painful viewing in personal testimony by women who were forced to undergo spirit-draining, humiliating violence inflicted upon them by men. From biblical accounts of women taken as slaves and concubines after tribal wars, to the Korean comfort women, to the plight of German women when Russian troops took their revenge post WWII, to the mass rapes in Darfur and Congo and now Syria and Libya, these vicious violations speak of the ongoing depredations inflicted upon women.

On the other hand, these are women who suffer these dreadful events during and after conflict situations. But then, rape is part of the subjugation of women who are tormented when they refuse to adhere to the religious-cultural restraints placed on their individuality and basic human rights, in many countries of the world. Where in Muslim countries accusations of rape hold the victim to be equally accountable and even more so, for her plight. Where in India the male dominated culture victimizes women and girls in viewing rape as a male entitlement. The shame is the woman's; males only doing what comes naturally to them.

"Sometimes women are killed after they're raped, so we don't find [out] about them. Then you have the chaos of war, and you have people moving around, and on top of that you have the stigma that prevents women from coming forward" stated Lauren Wolfe, director of the Women Under Siege project at the Women's Media Centre in New York who has been tracking sexualized violence in Syria for three years, interviewing women in Jordanian refugee camps. "It comes down to a lack of money -- you have to have the aid workers and support systems in place", she noted.

"Advocates and survivors in regions across Ukraine repeatedly recounted how police often blame women for provoking the violence perpetrated against them", pointed out Atonina Vikhrest of Women Under Siege. Universally, it is clear enough, from Syria to Burma, Sudan to Somalia, armies and non-state militias use rape as a method of subduing civilians through fear and intimidation, terrorizing women and the men who care about them.

A case in point was the revelation by Human Rights Watch reporting on yet another mass attack by Sudanese army troops in North Darfur where area men were rounded up and held in segregation while hundreds of women and girls were raped in a 36-hour period. Over 150 countries signed the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, at the United Nations last year. A variety of United Nations resolutions have been passed highlighting war-zone sexual violence and the travesty of horror it represents targeting women who are usually non-combatants but easy prey.

The outcome of which is precisely nothing whatever.

The Islamic State Is Coming

"We all know that if they come, they will slit our throats for no reason."
Qaa, Lebanon, Christian villager

This Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014 photo, shows a general view of Lebanon's Ras Baalbek, a Christian town in the northern Bekaa region near the border with Syria. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Well, the poor man is wrong; there is a reason. The Sunni extremist Islamic State views Christians as wasted on life; as non-Muslims they have no right to life and ISIS jihadis are eager to obligingly remove them from the lifestream of existence. The small Lebanese Christian village on the border of Syria is on tenterhooks; all the men carry with them automatic rifles to take up positions and lay in ambush just in case ...

Lebanese Christians have watched with dread and foreboding as other Christians are forced to flee the Islamic jihadis in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, knowing their turn is not long into the future. A border town was overrun by Islamic State mujahadeen a month ago to clash with security forces in a conflict that took place over a period of days where the IS jihadis killed and kidnapped Lebanese soldiers and police.

These Christian villagers are not strangers to sectarian violence. But since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990 they must have felt they had reason to hope that their ancestral homeland where their heritage of Christianity represents some of the most ancient such settlements in the world, would remain a safe haven for them and theirs. Now they are being forced to re-arm and set up self-defence units for protection.

Christian communities across the breadth of the Middle East as ancient as the religion itself, now know how at-risk their communities and their lives are, under threat of the Islamic State in its deadly rampages across Iraq and Syria. Tens of thousands of Christians, faced with the choice of converting to Islam or facing death, chose to flee their ancient homeland.

Now, Iraq's Ninevah region and the provincial capital of Mosul are empty of Christians. The Islamic State jihadis spray-painted their homes with the letter "N" representing the archaic word "Nasrani", referring to Christians, thus marking the houses as property of the Islamic State. Who is there who will argue with them for possession? During its three-year conflict Syria has seen thousands of its Christians displaced as they have come under jihadist attack.

Lebanon's Christian village of Ras Baalbek: Villagers are arming themselves for the first time since 1990 because they fear Isis will continue their rampage and cross the border from Syria to launch sectarian attacks   Bilal Hussein/The Associated Press

The rampages have destroyed churches and icons in one town after another In the militant stronghold of Raqqa, Christians were forced to pay an Islamic tax for protection, another quaint custom of Islam which dictates that the correct manner in which to dispose of non-Muslim unbelievers was to kill them, tax them, or banish them. Now, Christians originally from Iraq and Syria are finding shelter n Lebanon, a historically pluralistic country with the largest number of Christians left in the Middle East.

Fear is rampant, despite that Lebanon is the sole Arab country with a Christian head of state. A video, however, was posted online of boys burning an Islamic State flag in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut, after which vandals spray-painted the walls of several churches with the menacing words: "The Islamic State is coming."

The sale of weapons has climbed exponentially on the black market. Shiite militia groups like Hezbollah approve of this rearming by the Christians; they view the Christian communities as the first line of defence for Shiite towns and villages in the Bekaa Valley region certain at some point to come under attack by the Sunni Islamic State jihadists.

Small Christian units have been fighting with the People's Protection Unit in Syria, a Kurdish militia. With the knowledge, however, that the numbers of Christians are limited enough to have little impact since they haven't the numbers, arms, or combat training to render them effective in countering the battle-hardened Islamist jihadis.

Iraq was once home to a million Christians before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, removing the authority of Saddam Hussein, who had traditionally given protection to Christians. Since that time, Christians have been targeted by both the Shiite and Sunni extremists who view them as aliens to a country where their religion's presence far predated that of the Muslims. Even while the Shia and Sunni population violated each other's human rights, they preyed on the Christian Iraqis as well.

Since that time, their churches have been bombed, their clergymen killed, and Christians have been steadily harassed and made to fear for their lives. Church officials now place the community number at less than one-half of their former presence. And as events continue to play out in the Middle East, their numbers will continue to decrease, until they become as scarce in presence as that of Jews, who also once proliferated throughout the Middle East.

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Enemies? No, patients, say Israeli doctors treating Syrians

In the last year, more than 220 Syrians have been treated at Israel’s expense at the Nahariya hospital.

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / March 12, 2014

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Dr. Yoav Hoffman of the Western Galilee Hospital, says he's treated a number of Syrian children who appear to have been intentionally shot in the spine by a sniper.   Christa Case Bryant/TCSM

Nahariya, Israel

The West Galilee Hospital in Nahariya is no stranger to war. Located only six miles south of the Lebanese border, it took a direct missile hit during the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. But the Syrian war has pervaded these halls and wards in a much more personal way: through wounded Syrians, who are picked up at the border and brought here by the Israeli military for free treatment

Christa Case Bryant Jerusalem bureau chief
Christa Case Bryant is The Christian Science Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, providing coverage on Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as regional issues.

Since the first two Syrian patients arrived nearly a year ago, the hospital has treated more than 220 Syrians, out of around 600 who have been brought to Israel. About a third of those treated in Nahariya have been children, some of whom arrived unconscious or unaccompanied by a relative.
“Something explodes and next thing, they open their eyes in a foreign country, and everyone is speaking Hebrew,” says Dr. Tsvi Sheleg, the hospital’s assistant director general. “They are in an enemy country – that’s how they see it.”

Israel has a tradition of offering humanitarian assistance in war zones and natural disasters around the world, even where it is not particularly welcome. But treating Syrians, whose country is still officially at war with Israel, is not only a logistical miracle but an extraordinary exercise in humanity trumping hate.

"It's important as a human being to be able to help others as a human being. I thank my government … that gives us the opportunity to help each other," says Director-General Masad Barhoum, who oversees the government hospital. "They are human beings. I don't believe that anyone in this hospital believes they are enemies."

The Syrian patients generally come to a similar conclusion.

“At first they were frightened ... they thought we would harm them and torture them,” says Yoav Hoffman, senior physician in the pediatric intensive care unit, which has treated about 25 children, ranging in age from a few months to 17 years old. “Then after a few days they understood what we were doing and they didn't want to leave.”

Hospital staff don’t know whether they’re treating civilians or soldiers, and they say they’re not sure whether the Israeli army knows either. Some patients offer their own accounts, though there is no way of verifying them.

Dr. Jean Sustiel in the neurosurgery department says one man claimed he had been a bodyguard of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but decided to switch sides and fight with the rebels. But his fellow rebels began to suspect him of being an Assad spy and shot and wounded him.

“He didn’t want to go back because he was wanted by both sides,” says Dr. Sustiel. “So he wanted to be transferred back to Jordan.”

The doctors say they know little to nothing about how the Syrian patients are picked up and transferred back to the border, a process that is handled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). But there appears to be significant cross-border communication involved, potentially mediated by United Nations forces stationed along the border, especially since doctors say some children arrived alone and the IDF was able to track down a relative and bring them to the hospital within a short time.
Some analysts have speculated that such channels of communication may also be helping Israel to keep the more extremist jihadi and salafi groups in Syria away from its border.

But for doctors at the West Galilee Hospital, the mission is detached from geopolitics.

In Dr. Hoffman’s unit, a 3-year-old girl stands quivering on a table as her father embraces her. Both were injured in what he says was a cluster-bomb attack in Deraa, the southern city roughly 25 miles from Israel where the uprising began three years ago. He breaks down in tears as he tells of the attack, in which the girl’s twin brother was killed, but manages to add, “The treatment here is really excellent.”

But the doctors and staff say it’s not just about offering medical care. They also bring clothes, toys, and games from their own homes to give to the Syrian patients, including dolls and teddy bears for the children. One girl wanted so badly to see the Mediterranean Sea that the hospital worked with the Israeli military to bring her west to the beach before heading back east to the border.

The hospital’s willingness to help has brought in heartfelt letters and donations from Muslims in Israel and the US. One mosque in nearby Acre sent $1,000 collected during prayers, and individual American Muslims have written to thank the hospital for helping when Arab countries have done so little, says Amir Yarchi of Friends of the Western Galilee Hospital, who heads up fundraising efforts.

“When you think about the extent of casualties in Syria … we are dealing with one drop in the ocean,” says Sustiel. “But there is an old Jewish saying – when you have saved one soul you have saved an entire world, so this is what we hope we are doing.”