Hungry Ramadan: Refugees in Turkey See Steep Decline in Holiday Charity

ISTANBUL - Over a year ago, when much of the world shuttered as the pandemic swept the globe, Mohammed al-Awas, 46, a Syrian refugee, was stranded with his wife and five children at a gas station in Turkey. 

Not far from the Greek border, some families were sheltered nearby in an area usually reserved for fixing cars, their personal belongings in black garbage bags piled up along the walls. Dozens of men, women and children, mostly refugees from Syria, loitered outside the station, not sure where to go next.  Like the others, al-Awas wanted to cross the river to Greece. Turkey had declared the border open, so he had sold his furniture to make the journey. But Greece never opened its side of the border and many families were pushed back into Turkey, or were not able to cross at all.  Asked if they were afraid of getting the coronavirus, most refugees at the gas station that day were blasé. They had survived war, abject poverty and life on the streets. The virus couldn't be worse, they said.