When Rawan Bertawi, a 22-year-old Syrian refugee living in Denmark, reported to a hostel company’s warehouse one day in the middle of the day, she found that her key card was not working. She felt something was wrong.
Her fraudulent manager called her to his office and showed her an e-mail he had just received from the Danish immigration service: her refugee status – along with her right to work – had been revoked and she would have to leave the country.
Me. Bertawi and her family are among dozens of Syrian refugees who were deprived of their residence visas by Denmark and told to return to their war-torn country because the Danish government now considers Damascus – where they previously lived – safe. Human rights groups dispute the claim that any part of Syria is safe for returnees.
But since Denmark cut off formal diplomatic relations with Syria near the start of the civil war a decade ago, it has been unable to deport Syrians. Instead, it puts those who no longer have legal status in deportation camps, a policy that, according to aid programs, is to put pressure on Syrians to return to Syria voluntarily.
“It’s ruining human lives,” she said. Bertawi, who went to Denmark in 2015, said when she was 15. ‘Why would you wait until now when we are integrated and that we now consider it our country and have reached this stage and now you are telling us that we have to go? ”