In Turkey, Syrian labor crisis deepens amid strictest COVID-19 lockdown yet
May 6, 2021
A man walks down a street in Istanbul, past shops closed in compliance with the COVID-19 lockdown, 4/30/2021 (AFP)
ISTANBUL Worse than the “back-breaking” work that Muhammad Hourani does for 11 hours a day, is that it will be interrupted for weeks due to a total lockdown imposed by Turkey as a preventative measure against the COVID-19 virus from April 29 to May 17.
Hourani, a 16-year-old Syrian refugee, works at an upholstery workshop in Turkey’s İzmir province where he lives with his family, displaced from the Damascus district of Jobar in 2018. He has not received “any compensation or wages from my employer for the days of the curfew,” he told