Syrians

As pain is difficult to measure in Turkish, we sometimes use "the grief of losing a child," as a reference point to try to quantify the amount of suffering. We therefore accept that there is no bigger pain than witnessing the death of your child.

When I heard the children's choir in Canada that welcomed the Syrian refugees, I was really moved. They were singing Tala al-Badru Alayna (The Full Moon Rose Over Us), the very tune that was sung to welcome the Prophet Mohammad upon his arrival in Medina from Mecca in the year 620. The Muslim Prophet was then a refugee who barely survived slaughter in his home town.

The hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees pouring into Europe can be trained to form an army and return to "liberate" their homeland, Poland's new foreign minister said on Nov. 15.

A poet and journalist who met five Palestinians and Syrians fleeing war decided to help them complete their journey to Sweden from Milan. The Palestinian friend dressed up as a bride and a dozen or so italian and Syrian friends posed as wedding guests in an emotionally-charged expedition.

A 13-year old Syrian boy stranded at a train station in Hungary has spoken out, asking European leaders to stop the war in Syria. Suggesting that westerners do not like Syrians, the boy said Syrians would not come to Europe if there was no war pushing them there. ?Just stop the war and we won?t come to Europe,? he said.

Germany is not to blame for the stream of Syrian refugees in Hungary trying to board trains headed for Germany, Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

Hungary's government said earlier that Germany's "more flexible attitude" toward Syrians was a problem that encourages migration.

Syrians fleeing their war-torn country and carrying their possessions with them in black garbage bags have swarmed parks and streets in Turkey's Aegean province of ?zmir, as they have nowhere else to go while waiting to cross into European countries.

Turkey has once again opened its border to Syrian refugees amid a fresh influx of thousands of people, including women and children. Photos taken today at the border show the ongoing tragedy

They say they used to smuggle radios from Syria to Turkey. Now, they smuggle archeological artifacts. 

Journalist Arif Arslan?s new book ?Yüz Yüze Batman? (Batman, Face to Face) tells the stories of how people smuggled goods from across the Syrian border back in the 1960s. Arslan writes that locals smuggled goods from Syria because they had no other job opportunities. 

Some 200 Syrian refugees protesting in Athens on Friday asked to be allowed access to other European countries, fearing deteriorating conditions in crisis-hit Greece.