Drinking Tea with the Rebels

I’m back in Turkey. Hotel. Bed. Facebook. A friend request pops up, name written in Arabic. It turns out it’s a captain in the Free Syrian Army that I met earlier in the day. He’s stationed in Aleppo but has one night off to see his wife and four kids that are in Gaziatep, a large city just 20 kilometers from Kilis, Turkey.

He tells me that I should get to the Syrian city of Azaz tomorrow by 8 a.m. as there should be a funeral for an FSA soldier.

At 6 a.m. I wake up the receptionist to check out of my hotel and at 7 I wake up the Turkish border official to check out of Turkey.

Inside Syria I decide to go straight through the border area and find a car that can take me to town. I negotiate a price of 10 Turkish Lira (£3) and am about to jump in the car as a man in army fatigues carrying a Kalashnikov stops me. I need permission to leave the area and there’s no way around the media center.

While we wait for the media center to wake up the soldiers manning the control post invite me in for breakfast consisting of flat bread with spicy pickles and hot Arab tea cooked on a large gas burner standing between the two beds and a television that frames the room. The sweet tea cheers us all up and I start feeling less grumpy about being withheld. They don’t speak any English and I’ve soon used up my one Arabic word saying “Shukran” (thank you) every time I can get away with it. We still have a good time though and after a while I start playing around with my camera to see what reaction that will bring. As I hoped it doesn’t take long before they are posing and I’m snapping away freely.

It starts to pour. Again. It has been raining almost every single day since I arrived at the border. I curse my suede shoes for the tenth time on this trip, and stop. Realizing that all my worries have a warm bed, a bankcard, wireless Internet and a Christmas full of food and presents waiting just a few hours away. In the meantime a large queue has gathered outside in the rain. Men, women and children are getting drenched as they wait for the weekly handout of diapers…

I meet with my media “escort” from the day before and he tells me that the body of the captain is still in Turkey. They don’t know when he’ll be buried as his mother is on her way to the hospital to say her final goodbyes. Not much to argue about there, so I fold out my umbrella and go exploring in the camp.

Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army manning a control post on the Azaz border to Turkey.

Syrian children shows the sign for victory as a NGO employee takes their picture.

The many Muslims in the camp prays in the local mosque.

Two women are crossing the border into Syria from Turkey with a van full of supplies.

A Syrian doctor sits in the improvised medical clinic in the refugee camp waiting for patients. He was contacted by the rebels and asked if he would come to the camp to assist the many refugees. Before the war he worked with plastic surgery. The trip to the camp would normally take a little less than a day. This time he spend four days on the road getting here due to the fear of the government army.

Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army are watching Arabic television in one of the control posts.

Laser printed A4 copies showing ‘martyrs’, soldiers from the FSA who has died fighting.

A NGO worker stands in one of two tents acting as storage for the supplies that comes in through Turkey.

Young boys watches as a demonstration is being organized.

Mattresses waiting to be distributed in the camp.

Barbed wire and the threat of mines divide the two countries.

A soldier in the Free Syrian Army

Shoes are lined up and being prepared for distribution amongst the children in the camp.

An old Syrian lady watches as the refugees organize a demonstration that marches to the Turkish border and demands to be let in to Turkey. The people in this camp doesn’t have any passports so Turkey will not let them in to the country.

The demonstration marches the three kilometers to the Turkish border.

Soldiers have written in Arabic on the walls of the control post.

Soldiers in the Free Syrian Army manning a control post on the Azaz border to Turkey are checking cars coming from Syria trying to reach Turkey.

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