“The family, who reside in Akershus county, fear that two teenage daughters aged sixteen and nineteen traveled to Syria just before the weekend to play their part in the war currently ravishing the country,” the story began, citing the anonymous brother as the main source. It went on to say that a small group of investigators were working round the clock to try to determine the girls’ exact whereabouts abroad.
Martin Bernsen, the head of media relations in PST, was quoted as saying, “Since last summer we’ve been seeing an increase in the number of people traveling to conflict areas, especially Syria. Many of these are young. We suspect, and fear, that some of them intend to fight alongside al-Qaida-linked groups in Syria. This is a source of concern. Moreover, it is dangerous. We are aware of several people from Norway who have lost their lives. We’re also concerned at the prospect of people with extremist views having experience of war and then one day returning to Norway, still suffering perhaps from postconflict stress and trauma.”
* * *
In his room in a house in Bærum, a sixteen-year-old boy sat reading the story about the “two sisters from a small urban area in Akershus county.” He immediately posted the link to a discussion group run by Leila’s former classmates.
“This is too tragic to be true,” Joakim wrote beneath the link. “The rumors weren’t bogus … crazy stuff.”
The first comments came right away.
Alexander: Leila.….…
Sofie: HOLYSHITTHISISBAD
Emilie: Really is it Leila?
Alexander: it’s genuine
Joakim: It’s fucking worse than bad.
Emilie: Does it say it’s her?
Sofie: of course it’s her
Silje: wow
Sofie: she is 16 AND she had a big sister aged 19, she and the sister both went around in hijabs
Emilie: omg the poor family!
Henrik: fuck me, I knew something like this would happen … she was a member of some kind of organization in oslo, they were probably the ones put her up to it …
Synne: shit that is completely nuts
Theodor: she did say she was going to Somalia when she turned 18
Henrik: somalia is in syria now is it?
Emilie: don’t diss each other pls
Alexander: what is she trying to achieve? How is a 16 year old going to help in an actual war?
Emilie: she must have thought it was so horrible seeing all those people being killed that she felt she had to do more than just send money …
The comments streamed in, with exclamation marks and capital letters, questions and replies tumbling through the thread as more people logged on.
Storm: Leila wasn’t quite right in the head and her religious beliefs were not altogether healthy, we could see that in class.
Synne: I think writing that kind of thing shows a lack of respect, we are all passionate about different things in our lives! I think it’s a brave thing to do. But scary. Imagine something happens to Leila?
Alexander: She’s made her own choice. It’s the family I feel sorry for not her, not in any way.
Joakim: I’m pretty sure it can only end badly for Leila … we need to prepare for the worst!
Alexander: seems so
Ulrik: She is an extremist though
Synne: a person is missing? and you guys talk shit about her. Wow you all need to get real
Alexander: saying she is an extremist is not talking shit about her. Just because she is missing doesn’t mean people should suddenly have a load of respect for her
Theodor: This was unbelievably not thought through, it’s a fucking war. It’s not going to be like “hi will you help carry the wounded,” she’ll be lucky not to end up as one of them …
Around midnight the comments abated. Monday was a school day for the sixteen-year-olds. The discussions would continue in the schoolyard.
3
BLINDMAN’S BUFF
A stench hit him as he stepped down off the bus. It was still dark, the night air was humid, and his skin felt clammy. Once he was standing on the asphalt, exhaust fumes replaced the rank breeze that had initially assailed him. He straightened up, searched through his pockets, and found a cigarette.
The trip had taken half the night. Finally, he drove through darkened suburbs, then in toward the city center where the lights were on, street after street, so many places to hide.
He inhaled the nicotine as people hurried past, lugging large rucksacks and suitcases, as bus drivers called out their destinations. The passengers moved along like ants, struggling with their burdens, crisscrossing one another, knowing well where they were going. He himself had no route to take.
He did not know a word of Turkish, but surely here on the border to Syria there must be people who spoke Arabic. He collected his thoughts, put out the cigarette, hailed a taxi, and asked the driver to take him to the Arab part of town.
“I want a hotel that’s cheap and clean,” he said.
“How cheap?” the driver shot back. The cheapest rooms cost from twenty lira up, he said, “but they’re not clean.”
Sadiq tried to work it out in dollars, dividing by three. “Find me one for forty,” he said.
The backpack with the laptop lay safely on his thighs, the small suitcase with wheels on the seat beside him. He pulled his baggage closer.
The taxi pulled up at a narrow doorway. The sign above read SEKER PALAS—Sugar Palace. Sadiq paid the driver and clambered up a steep flight of stairs. At the top he came to a pay window, behind which a man sat sleeping. Sadiq knocked at the glass. The hatch was opened.
Room. Bed. Now. He did not place great demands on the receptionist’s language abilities. He was handed a key.
So this is where you’ll stay, he said to himself as he lay down on the bed. Outside, the sun was rising, but he had to sleep, just for a little while.
He awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. It was Monday morning, eleven o’clock. He called Sara, who was impatient for an update.
“Have you found them?”
No, he told her dejectedly.
“You were asleep? You’re not a tourist! Get outside and look!”
Back home, the media had laid siege, at least that was how it felt. Neither Sara nor Ismael could face going out the front door. As a result, the boys had not gone to school.
Sara had been berated over the telephone, even by people she scarcely knew, calling to say the family had brought shame upon Somalis.
You shouldn’t have contacted the Norwegian authorities, we’re Muslims and you’re not going to get any help from them.
You’re crazy! Cooperating with the media! With the police! Naïve!
On Somali online debate forums and social media, the verdict was harsh. The family had lost control over their daughters because the mother had not brought them up properly and the father had neglected them.
Sara’s friends tried to console her. “They will soon come back of their own accord, you’ll see. How long do you think they’ll be able to stick it out in a war zone?”
Not long, Sara thought.
Sadiq had to stop them before they got that far.
He listened to his wife. He needed to hear her voice. They had to be together on this.
“I’ll find them,” he promised.
* * *
Do not lose your way. That will only make things worse.
Sadiq walked as far as he dared in one direction, turned, then went back toward the hotel and walked as far as he thought he could risk in the opposite direction. Back and forth, farther and farther afield. He made a note of places before turning around, then took a different route, always using the hotel as his starting point. In this slow, laborious manner he gradually increased his familiarity with the city.
My objective is invisible, my objective is unknown. Lines of verse tumbled through his mind.
It was hot. He needed to drink something. He bought some water. His head whirled. He ate lentil soup with bread. Drank more water.
<
br /> He began approaching passersby.
Girls?
Here?
People shook their heads. Somali girls? In niqabs? No …
A photocopy of their passport pictures was the only visual aid he had found at home. Leila had been looking into the camera in a pink hijab. Ayan was wearing a black one.
In the photocopy everything was gray.
He focused on women in niqabs. Some walked alone, others in groups. In the early evening, when the worst of the heat abated, more of them were out on the streets. There, there, there! His daughters might be in the crowd, but they never were. Could he have passed them without noticing? No, he would have recognized them by their gait, their height and posture, the way they held their heads, high and proud, like him. They were different from the women here, who either scurried along almost nervously, or puffed and panted underneath the black folds of material.
He walked toward the high mountain bounding the city to the east. Finding two girls in a city was … impossible. He turned, walked back to the hotel, and sat down at the nearest bar, which was called Gulp. He drank strong Turkish coffee. The flavor was so sharp he felt it cut him in his mouth. He collapsed onto the bed at midnight. He needed a change of strategy. Searching haphazardly was a waste of time.
* * *
There were several taxi drivers who hung around outside the hotel, one of whom had given him a card when he had arrived. “I’m Mehmut. If you need a car, call me.” After a humid, oppressive night, Sadiq rang the number on the card. They arranged to meet.
“Why are you so stressed out?” Mehmut asked.
Sadiq shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Let’s go find a table in Gulp and I’ll tell you everything.”
The taxi driver had the build of a boxer, with powerful upper arms and a bull neck. His front teeth were false and he had a gold implant. He sat silently while Sadiq told him his story.
When he had heard everything, he said, “I’m here for you. You’re my friend.”
Sadiq liked what he saw in his eyes.
Mehmut drove him around all day, and although more effective than walking, it seemed equally aimless.
Sara rang a number of times.
“Have you found them? Have they called?”
The next morning Mehmut suggested they go to the police. “You won’t find them the way you’re going about it.”
Mehmut drove him to police headquarters, a stately redbrick building with tendrils of pink flowers climbing wild up white railings. Turkey’s flag, red with the white star and crescent, flew on the roof.
The two men went inside. Sadiq recounted his story. Mehmut translated.
“My daughters have traveled from Norway and are planning to cross into Syria. Can you help me?”
The local police were forthcoming, but they needed to be officially petitioned, they said. They required a request from the Norwegian police.
“The girls are on Interpol’s missing persons list,” Sadiq said.
“They haven’t committed any offenses here, so there’s nothing we can do. Ask the Norwegian police to get in touch with us, and we’ll keep our eyes open.”
It was hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless.
The Norwegian authorities had actually dispatched a police liaison who worked for the Scandinavian embassies in Ankara to act as an intermediary between the Turkish police and the police back in Norway. He had called Sadiq, who had not understood what he said because the policeman was speaking in Danish. Eventually Sadiq just hung up.
After another visit to Gulp, he collapsed on the bed once more. He was fumbling in the dark.
Sara called: Well? Well? Well?
He answered: Unfortunately. Sadly. Sorry.
* * *
The following morning, after a cup of strong tea and a breakfast of beans, olives, and yogurt, he asked the hotel receptionist, “Is there a meeting place for people who want to get into Syria?”
The receptionist looked him up and down. “There’s a park,” he said, his voice lowered. “They meet there. Make deals. They can get you in.”
Sadiq had met two Somali youths from Gothenburg at the hotel. They had returned from Syria. One had been wounded in the back and wanted to get home to Sweden for treatment. Hatay province was a way station for jihadists. They flew in, or came by bus, staying for a few days while waiting to be smuggled into Syria. Some of them traveled straight from the airport to the border and crossed over within a matter of hours. Or they returned from the war zone to Antakya, which Syrians called Hatay after the surrounding province, to gather their strength, rest up after seeing action, meet their families, and stock up on supplies.
“Take a left when you go out the door,” the receptionist motioned. “Follow the pavement until you reach a main road, then take a left, walk over the bridge, then take a left again at the first set of traffic lights across the river, then continue on until you come to a park…”
He could make out the tops of the trees from a distance, tall palms and Mediterranean conifers. Drawing closer, he saw trails and walkways crisscrossing one another, shaded patches between the trees, playground equipment, and a kiosk selling soft drinks. Nothing happens there until after dark, the receptionist had added as Sadiq had made ready to leave. He sat and waited.
In the playground, women sat chatting. The squeals of the children livened up the drowsy atmosphere. Elderly men rested in low chairs in the shade, smoking and engaging in quiet conversation as the late afternoon turned to evening. Large fir cones lay strewn all around.
A mother wheeling a buggy exited the park, a couple of young men entered. An old man with a cane rose unsteadily to his feet, two bearded men took his place. So it continued, until the sun went down.
The game began. Money, notes, telephones, and messages changed hands. Conversations were carried out in low voices, with common knowledge implied, and alternated between Turkish and Arabic. Most of the smugglers were Arabs of Syrian extraction.
Hatay province mirrors the ethnic distinctions in Syria. Here live Alawites, Sunnis, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, and Christians. Family ties to Syria are common.
Under Ottoman rule, Hatay was the hinterland of the powerful trading city of Aleppo. With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the spoils of victory were distributed among the Western powers, which drew up new borders—so-called spheres of influence—in the Middle East, in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Hatay was incorporated into the French Mandate for Syria. In the 1920s and ’30s, the province avoided Kemal Atatürk’s campaign to impose a unitary national identity, since Turkish annexation did not take place until 1939. Syria protested, to no avail. But the Assad regime still included Hatay within Syria on official maps. The two countries had attempted to find an amicable solution and planned a Friendship Dam to create a reservoir on the Orontes River, which formed part of their mutual border. But that was before the uprising in Syria changed everything.
The Turkish authorities feared that the civil war, which was creating ever greater divisions among Syria’s ethnic and religious groups, would spill over the border. At the same time, they turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons and influx of fighters. Every day jihadists from all over the world were landing at Turkish airports to make their way into Syria.
Sadiq had found an underworld. Smugglers who drove people into Syria for money. Or were paid to get them out. People slipped in and out, to kill or be killed.
The park was merely the gateway. The real black market was on the outskirts of town. The smell of gasoline from drums of oil drawn from Assad’s wells filled the air. Everything could be bought here. Weapons, what type? Ammunition, how much? Drugs, any kind you like. A woman, for an hour, a night, or as long as you wanted.
Whom the weapons would be aimed at, no one cared. What the woman’s name was, only she knew. No one asked about your beliefs, your doubts. Here, the price was everything.
Are you looking for a son or a daughter? he was asked.
Two daughters.
One thousand dollars first. That will get you an answer. If they’re alive, it costs three thousand each to get them out. If you want both of them, it’ll be six thousand.
There were no guarantees. Sadiq’s instinct was to take matters into his own hands.
Still, there were young people being extricated. One wounded boy was to be taken out, paid for by his family, he told Sara. Parents from Kuwait, Qatar, the UK, had come looking, he recounted. Hunched figures. Desperation in their eyes. Wringing hands. Shoulders stooped.
Because when your child is missing, it shows.
Then there were those who did not get their children. Instead they only received word: He’s dead. He died there. Your son, forget about him. Your daughter, forget about her.
One day he was driven to a place to negotiate. He sat in the backseat almost passing out, every turn or bump was nauseating. Out of the car, up a staircase, he found himself in an apartment.
Let me see my daughters, then I’ll pay you six thousand dollars.
No, the money first.
I have a large family, I can’t throw away money.
No payment, no girls.
The middleman said, Okay, just give us one thousand now, then a thousand afterward.
The next day he was told: Your daughters arrived here last Friday.
They stayed in an apartment, along with several other girls, never stepping outside, until they all traveled over together.
They had been here a week. At the same time as him.
They crossed the border yesterday.
4
IN
Mehmut whispered, “Good luck…”
Sadiq got ready.
He sprinted toward the barbed wire. It tore into skin and flesh. Searchlights swept slowly across no-man’s-land, leaving pitch darkness behind. He forced his way through the hole in the fence. Do not get caught. Do not stumble. Do not fall.
He ran.
Beyond the border lay a two-mile-wide unoccupied zone. Parts of this stretch were dug up, as though defensive trenches had been planned. On either side of the ditches lay fields and flatland.
Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey Into the Syrian Jihad Page 5