It’s been well over a decade since millions of Syrians flooded into Turkey en masse, seeking refuge from the civil war at home. But today, there are increasing signs the refugees may have worn out their welcome.

This month, anti-Syrian riots took place in several cities across the country. In the capital Ankara, opposition parties are calling for mass deportations, and the government is calling on the Syrian regime it once sought to topple to help resolve the problem.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now publicly seeking a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad, the man he once labeled a terrorist, to reset relations. Before the Syrian civil war, the two leaders vacationed together, but years later, after the Syrian regime brutally crushed a public revolt, Erdogan sought to oust him from office and backed local forces fighting against him.

“We believe that it is beneficial to open clenched fists,” Erdogan said this month. “We want disputes to be resolved through mutual dialogue at the negotiation table.”

Turkey is hosting an estimated 3.1 million Syrian refugees – more than any other country. Unofficial estimates are much higher, given that undocumented refugees aren’t counted.

But overcoming a bitter, years-long personal feud and extremely complex relations between Ankara and Damascus will be no small feat. Turkish troops remain in control of a swath of Syrian territory along the Turkish border where Syrian opposition groups are sheltering.

A political matter for Erdogan

For Erdogan, “immigration and refugees are the main concern,” said Bilal Bagis, an analyst at the government-leaning SETA think tank in Ankara. “It’s becoming a political argument against the incumbent government in Turkey… and it definitely has turned into something that needs to be resolved.”

Assad has long made clear that there will only be a meeting when Turkey withdraws troops from Syria, although he indicated this week that he would meet if the topic was at least on the agenda.

“If the meeting leads to results, or if there’s a hug, a scolding, or even cheek-kissing that serves the country’s interest, I will do it,” Assad said. “The problem is not in the meeting itself but in the content of the meeting.”

While there are no signs that Turkey would withdraw from Syria or drop its support for the Syrian opposition, the olive branch from Ankara indicates the pressure Erdogan is under to deal with the discontent at home.

This month, reports of a Syrian man sexually abusing his seven-year-old Syrian cousin sparked riots and violence in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri, with Turks targeting Syrian-owned businesses and cars.

The government blamed social media for fueling the unrest, which quickly spread to other cities. In Antalya, a teenager was killed and in Istanbul, an Arab man was threatened with a knife at a restaurant in an upscale part of the city. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said hundreds of people were arrested in the aftermath.

The riots exposed long-simmering tensions between Syrians and Turks that have been made worse by the economic pressures brought by Turkey’s sky-high inflation.

Unlike European nations, where Syrian refugees are being permanently resettled, most Syrians in Turkey are treated as “guests” with temporary protection and are subject to a number of restrictions.

Most Syrians cannot travel freely within the country. Fewer than 10% of Syrian adults have work permits, with the rest being limited to informal, under-the-table jobs. Untold numbers of Syrian children are not in school, either because they work or face difficulty enrolling due to rules requiring them to attend schools in the areas where they were initially registered. Only a small proportion of Syrians have been granted citizenship in the country of 85 million.

‘No acceptance of Syrians’ in Turkish society

Many Turks complain that Syrians have failed to integrate, but Syrians argue their host country hasn’t made it easy.

“Integration depends on two things: effort on the part of migrants, and for citizens of the country to accept them as part of society… but right now there is no acceptance of Syrians in Turkey,” said Ebubekir Hussamoglu, a Syrian who arrived in the country just before war broke out at home, forcing him to stay. He’s now a legal consultant and a Turkish citizen. His biography bears little resemblance to the average Syrian in Turkey, who is often at the low end of the economic and social ladder.

“These people have been working in Turkey for about ten years and are receiving lower wages and they are not getting their social rights, social security. This doesn’t make them feel secure here in the long run,” he said.

Recent deportee Mohammad Shbeeb says his existence in Turkey was anything but secure. He first arrived at the border in 2018, and says he was promptly detained and sent back. He says he was threatened with indefinite detention if he didn’t sign a document agreeing to voluntarily return. Many other Syrians have similar stories.

Abdullah Resul Demir, president of International Refugee Rights Association, a volunteer-led NGO helping Syrians navigate the legalities of immigration, says some people have had to leave their families behind in Turkey when they’re deported. “We have faced many examples like that,” he said.

The Turkish interior ministry said such claims are unfounded and unacceptable.

For Shbeeb, two weeks after being returned, he smuggled himself back into Turkey, but was never able to get papers to officially stay. Earlier this month, he said he was picked up by immigration authorities on his way home from work in the city of Gaziantep, and promptly deported once again. All of his belongings are still in his Turkish apartment. He is now staying with a friend in Azaz, northwestern Syria. Ankara says the city is in a safe zone controlled by Turkish troops. But Shbeeb says it’s far from safe.

“There is bombing, sometimes from (US-backed Syrian opposition forces) or from even the (Assad) regime…. so no, it’s not a safe area at all,” he said.

Shbeeb says it wasn’t easy to integrate in Turkey, but he tried anyway. He had a well-paying job in Gaziantep (he now works remotely for the same company), he learned Turkish and made Turkish friends.

“Turkish people didn’t accept the integration of Syrians in their society. I think they suffer from fear of others – Arabs, Europeans, anyone who is not a Turk,” he said. “In six years, I didn’t feel like this society could accept me.”

Living in ‘ghettos’

Integration of Syrians has been a failure, according to Cenk Ozatici, deputy chairman of the secular, nationalist opposition Iyi (Good) Party. The party advocated the creation of conditions inside Syria that are safe enough to send back all Syrian asylum-seekers. Ozatici says the government never really planned for Syrians to stay long term, and the sheer volume of people meant integration was always impossible.

“It’s impossible because of cultural differences and historical issues. It’s even impossible sometimes, because of the difference in the interpretation of Islam. I know that many Western powers sometimes just think ‘you are Muslim, they are Muslim, so what’s the problem?’, but it’s not like that,” he said.

Ozatici believes that because many Syrians end up living in what he describes as “ghettos,” and because Turkish birth rates are so low, and asylum-seeker birth rates so high, “the demographic structure and identity of Turkish society is under threat.”

He is critical of a 2016 deal Turkey signed with the European Union that saw Ankara agree to take back migrants who crossed into Europe. He’s not alone. To varying degrees, most mainstream political parties in Turkey believe the solution lies in returning asylum-seekers to Syria.

“The solution should be found in Syria, by negotiating with the regime in Syria,” he said. “I care about Syrian women and children here, because ultimately they are humans. But I also care about my country and my city.”

A surfer’s leg that was severed by a shark attack on Tuesday later washed up on an Australian beach, where a police officer retrieved it and put on ice.

McKenzie tried to fight off the shark, which severed his right leg, and was able to ride a wave back to the beach, bleeding heavily, before the quick thinking of a retired police officer on a dog walk saved his life, 7News reported an official as saying.

“He used the lead from the dog as a tourniquet to wrap around the young man’s leg and essentially saved his life until paramedics got there,” said NSW Ambulance Service Hastings South duty manager Kirran Mowbray.

McKenzie underwent surgery at the John Hunter Hospital in the nearby city of Newcastle, where he remains in stable condition, according to a GoFund Me set up a neighbor of his family.

The severed leg was also taken to the hospital in case doctors were able to reattach it, 7News reported.

McKenzie was just returning to the waves after breaking his back last year, surfwear brand Rage, which sponsors him, said on Instagram.

“Sending love to … the toughest person that we know,” the company said. “He has been through a lot breaking his back last year, he never once complained always just got on with doing what he loved as soon as possible. He is an inspiring person.”

A long stretch of the beaches in Port Macquarie was closed for 24 hours after the shark attack, according to the town’s lifeguards, before they reopened on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities are trying to track and identify the shark, NSW Police Chief Inspector Stuart Campbell said, according to 7News, using drones and SMART drumlines – a type of trap that can move sharks without killing them.

There are several shark monitoring devices on the coastline at Port Macquarie. These detected two white sharks in the area on Tuesday morning before the attack.

Ten migrants drowned in a flooded river near Panama’s coastal community of Carreto while crossing the Darién Gap, Panama’s National Border Service (Senafront) said Wednesday.

Senafront did not specify the nationalities of the migrants or when they drowned.

The agency said the case is still under investigation but suspects that transnational organized criminals and local collaborators led the migrants through unauthorized border crossings, putting their lives at risk.

The Darién Gap is a mountainous rainforest region connecting Colombia in South America to Panama in Central America that is a crucial passage for migrants hoping to reach the United States and Canada.

There has recently been an increase in the number of migrants willing to risk their lives and safety on the 66-mile (106-kilometer) hike required to cross it and the United States and Panama signed an agreement earlier this month aimed at closing “the passage of illegal immigrants” through it.

Since the beginning of July, Panama’s new government, led by President José Raúl Mulino, has placed barbed wire across several routes in the Darién Gap, so that migrants who enter illegally through the border with Colombia are forced to use a single authorized entrance, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Security.

“I will not allow Panama to be a path open to thousands of people who enter our country illegally supported by an entire international organization related to drug and human trafficking,” Mulino said at his swearing-in ceremony.

Senafront said the only authorized migration corridor is one that leads to Cañas Blancas, “where specialized patrols are available for their protection and humanitarian assistance.”

This is a developing story. More to come.

At least 15 people have died and more than 195 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized near Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday.

The Mauritanian coastguard has rescued 120 people since the boat capsized Monday, including unaccompanied and separated children, according to IOM.

“We are deeply saddened by the death of 15 migrants and the estimated disappearance at sea of 195-plus people after a boat capsized in Nouakchott,” IOM’s West and Central Africa office said on X.

Rescue efforts are underway to locate the missing.

A statement released by the IOM noted the tragedy took place amid increasing migration through what it referred to as the West Atlantic Route. It said that so far in 2024 alone, more than 19,700 migrants had arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands using this route, compared to just 7,590 during the same period in 2023.

It said its Missing Migrants Project had recorded more than 4,500 deaths and disappearances on this route since 2014, including over 1,950 deaths last year, the second deadliest on record.

Since June 2024, more than 76 boats with around 6,130 surviving migrants have disembarked in Mauritania, with at least 190 dead and missing migrants, it said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Alyoshina said she is now “ashamed” of posts she made earlier this year announcing the move.

“I wrote and said this out of fear because gender reassignment and the non-existent LGBTQ+ movement are prohibited in the Russian Federation,” she said, adding: “I was born a woman in a man’s body.”

Then, in May, Alyoshina changed her Telegram channel back to her pre-transition name and uploaded a pre-transition profile photo, saying she had decided to revert to her birth gender during Orthodox Lent, citing “spiritual anguish.”

When the court responded that it doesn’t provide explanations on current laws, she said she felt terrified that “the state repressive machine could turn on.”

“I began sleeping poorly and waking up early, by springtime my anxiety and depression worsened,” Alyoshina said. The politician also feared that she might never achieve her life’s dream of undergoing gender reassignment surgery due to the new regulations.

She also remains vocal about the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in present-day Russia, saying their rights are discriminated against and violated. “I hope my post will provide moral support to transgender people,” she said adding that it is currently impossible for a transgender person to change the documents even after an official medical diagnosis confirming their gender identity.

President Vladimir Putin signed a widely criticized law in July 2023 prohibiting nearly all medical help for transgender people including gender reassignment surgery, except for treating “birth anomalies” in children.

The legislation also bars transgender individuals from adopting children and allows authorities to annul their marriages.

This move, along with stringent laws passed in December 2022 targeting so-called “LGBTQ propaganda,” is viewed as part of Russia’s broader policy to enforce what it refers to as “traditional values” and suppress LGBTQ+ rights. These policies have been widely criticized by human rights organizations and have significantly impacted the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals in the country, leading to increased fears, marginalization and a climate of oppression.

In October 2022, when the State Duma passed the first reading of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, Alyoshina decided to resign as regional head of the centrist, liberal-democratic Civic Initiative party and end her political career.

“I have no idea how to continue to conduct public political activity as an openly transgender woman,” she said in a Telegram post at the time. However, in 2023, Alyoshina returned and announced her plans to run for governor in the Altai region of Siberia, before later dropping that campaign.

When asked what Alyoshina was hoping to achieve for other transgender people in Russia by coming forward with this statement, she replied: “I would like to convey the message: Don’t give up, keep fighting. As long as we keep fighting, we are alive.”

One person was killed and three others were injured at Cambodia’s famed centuries-old Angkor temple complex when a large tree was blown down onto their vehicle during a fierce rainstorm, the government said Wednesday.

The accident occurred late Tuesday afternoon at the southern gate to Angkor Thom, which is near the more famous Angkor Wat temple and part of the same archaeological complex in the northwestern province of Siem Reap, about 200 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.

The site is Cambodia’s most popular tourist attraction and in the first half of this year attracted more than half a million international tourists, according to Cambodia’s Tourism Ministry.

The tree fell on a tuk-tuk — a kind of motorized three-wheeled vehicle popular in South and Southeast Asia — killing the driver instantly and injuring its three passengers, one critically, according to a statement issued by the Siem Reap Provincial Administration.

Several statues on the balustrade of what is called Tonle Oum Gate were also damaged by the falling tree, the statement said.

The Apsara National Authority, the government agency that oversees the archaeological park, posted photos late Tuesday on its official Facebook page showing the fallen tree in front of the temple entrance. The agency later announced that the tree had been removed and the entrance was again accessible to visitors.

The Angkor site sprawls across some 155 square miles, containing the ruins of capitals of various Cambodian empires from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Scholars consider it to be one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.