{"id":44252,"date":"2020-11-12T22:24:47","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T22:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44252"},"modified":"2020-11-12T22:24:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T22:24:47","slug":"un-says-11000-have-fled-ethiopia-to-sudan-50-of-them-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44252","title":{"rendered":"UN says 11,000 have fled Ethiopia to Sudan, 50% of them children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nARBAT, Iraq: Speaking into a microphone in her modest studio, Sherin Mohammad goes live with the news. But this is no typical radio station: Gardenya FM is run by, and for, Syrian refugees.
Broadcast from the refugee camp of Arbat in northeast Iraq, Gardenya FM features news programs and talk shows, produced by a team far from their native Syria.
Nearly 500 km away from her home town of Qamishli, Sherin concludes her news roundup, waits for the catchy jingle to end and sets down her clunky headphones on a white wooden desk.
The 31-year-old fled Qamishli in 2014 so she could stay with her husband, desperate to avoid the military conscription imposed by the Syrian government.
Their painful displacement came with a silver lining: She could realize her lifelong dream of being a journalist.
\u201cI wanted to be a reporter back in Syria but it wasn\u2019t on offer at my local university, so I became a teacher,\u201d she told AFP.
In 2018, Italian NGO UPP proposed setting up a local radio station in Arbat, and Sherin jumped at the opportunity.
She has dedicated herself since then to providing reliable information to fellow refugees on the Syrian conflict, which erupted in 2011 with protests against the regime Bashar Assad.
The war has profoundly divided communities both inside and outside Syria, with various sides trading accusations of fabricating news.
Sherin wants to be the antidote.
\u201cEveryone has smartphones and they can read any old thing published about Syria,\u201d she said, including \u201cfake news spread by the regime.\u201d
Gardenya broadcasts locally at 101.3 FM, but the team also posts on the station\u2019s Facebook page, which has several thousand likes.
Through it, Sherin said, loved ones still in Syria could see what life is like for Arbat\u2019s 9,056 residents, many of whom sensed their displacement would be long-term and began replacing tarp tents with cinderblock structures in 2017.
\u201cWe want to give real information to those still in our homeland through our Facebook page so that people see we don\u2019t live in tents,\u201d she added.
Strolling through these one-room cement homes with a bounce in his step is Khalil, another Gardenya FM reporter.
He is well-known: Fellow refugees greeted him warmly, and someone handed him a flatbread with thyme for breakfast. Youssef, a 19-year-old trainee, trailed behind.
\u201cThis is how you build a network,\u201d Khalil explained to him.
\u201cWe use our friends, our relatives, our journalist colleagues who are in the country and those on the front\u201d to gather information, said Khalil.
But for the former English teacher from Amuda in northeast Syria, the most interesting people to speak to are the Syrian Kurds who travel back and forth between their homeland and safe haven in Arbat.
One of them, Goran, was Gardenya FM\u2019s latest interview subject.
Covered in flour after a long morning making flatbreads to sell in the camp, Goran answers Khalil\u2019s questions, then has a few of his own: Is the border still open? Could he travel back to check on his wife, still stuck in their Syrian home town?
\u201cWith Covid-19, we have little information. The radio can tell us every day what\u2019s going on,\u201d Goran said.
Although Goran misses his family, he said he couldn\u2019t imagine trying to live in Syria again.
\u201cWhy move back? There\u2019s no electricity, no salary, the US dollar is so expensive,\u201d he said.
\u201cAt least here, there\u2019s work,\u201d he told AFP from his cinderblock bakery.
According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 230,000 Syrian refugees living in northern Iraq, 40 percent of them in camps, with the rest in rented homes or other housing arrangements. Officially, none have permanently returned to Syria.
The Syrian regime is hosting a summit on Wednesday and Thursday to encourage returns, with 5.5 million Syrians still seeking refuge outside their homeland. But infrastructure and public services are lacking across the war-ravaged country and rights defenders warn that some areas are still unsafe for large-scale repatriations.
\u201cSyria remains in our hearts,\u201d said Khalil.
\u201cBuilding (Arbat) with our own means is our way of saying that we can rebuild a Syria without Assad,\u201d he added.
\u201cThat\u2019s what the radio is for, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARBAT, Iraq: Speaking into a microphone in her modest studio, Sherin Mohammad goes live with the news. But this is no typical radio station: Gardenya FM is run by, and for, Syrian refugees.Broadcast from the refugee camp of Arbat in northeast Iraq, Gardenya FM features news programs and talk shows, produced by a team far…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}