Feature: Syria suffers elite exodus as unemployment hits record high
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E-mail Xinhua, February 13, 2013
Ali, a successful Syrian lawyer, told his family one night that they were going to seek humanitarian asylum in Germany and asked his wife to prepare for the departure as he was selling the house in order to afford the emigration.
Like many Syrian families, Ali's family has been affected by the deadly conflict, which has repercussion on all aspects of people's life.
The elites in the conflict-ravaged country are at least more fortunate than those from the lower class as their savings, and in some cases properties, can afford them costly trips to Europe or other places in the world.
"Since I can afford to get myself and my family out of the country, why wouldn't I do that?" Ali wondered.
He said that he had sold a house his father bought him in the Yarmouk area in the capital Damascus so as to get enough cash for his four-member family to start a new life in Germany.
"I have relatives in Berlin who have helped me obtain Schengen visas and once I set foot in Berlin I will apply for asylum for me and my two kids, as my relatives told me that Syrians are being granted the right to humanitarian asylum," he said, adding that the Schengen visas for his family had coasted him more than 30,000 U.S. dollars.
After arriving in Berlin, Ali told his parents on the Internet that thousands of Syrians lived in a big neighborhood-like camp there and waited for being granted asylum by German authorities.
Ali would count himself lucky compared to some fellow Syrians denied access to Europe for holding fake visas that were sold to them visas by frauds.
Maher, a 35-year-old chemist, who ran a successful job before the crisis, said that his cousin had called him one day and asked him to collect 500,000 Syrian pounds, around 5,500 dollars, to get a Schengen visa to Greece. The offer was lower than what a genuine Schengen visa would usually cost.
"I was so excited and felt like my dreams are being answered," Maher said, who collected the money with the help of some friends and left one month later with three cousins and two friends for Lebanon where the visas will be mailed.
After waiting a couple of weeks in Beirut, they got the visas and glued them onto their passports without even heading to the Greek embassy.
"We packed up our things and headed to the airport, taking pictures along the way for future memories of our last moments in the Arab world," he said.
"We got to the international airport of Beirut and passed through several sections before reaching the General Security, where our passports needed to be checked with the visas," he said.
"Then, the security official ... compared the visas' serial numbers with those on a list, and then told us to step aside while calling the airport's security."
Long story short, Maher said, the visas' serial numbers turned out to be forged and we spent one month in Roumieh Prison in Lebanon where we met hundreds of fellow Syrians detained on the same charges.
"I have lost all my money and am here doing nothing but playing guitar and trying to feel upbeat," he said.
Media reports have said that around 500,000 of the top Syrian civil servants have lost their jobs amid reports that unemployment in the country hit record high as a result of 23 months of unrest.
A recent report issued by the Syrian Center for the Politics' Researches said that half a million of Syria's elite workers have left the country, noting that this figure is a chunky cut from Syria's 3.5-million workforce.
The center estimate about 1.5 million people are jobless in total, pointing out that those workers are the breadwinners of around 6 million people. Endi
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