Three weeks on, Syrian Volunteer Helpers are wading through mud to clear debris

‘They helped us. Now we have to help them’: Syrian volunteers in German flood relief effort

Migrant volunteers clear up flood-hit Germany

Syrian volunteers have rushed to towns hit by Germany’s most devastating floods in 60 years to clean them up and renovate homes, drawing on their experience with catastrophes in their homeland to help the country that took them in.

Most of the volunteers arrived in Germany in 2015, fleeing war and poverty, when the country accepted more than a million refugees and migrants.

Anas Alakkad, co-organizer of the volunteer group Syrian Volunteers in Germany, said that he was reminded of home when the flooding disaster struck.

“What we knew of Germany is that it was very organized, very nice, very green. And then here in the catastrophe area, we felt like we were back in Syria,” he said, helping out in the western German district of Ahrweiler.

“We felt like this cannot be happening. We must do something. And that has inspired us,” he added. The group says hundreds of its volunteers have rushed to the affected areas in western Germany.

Mouaiad Abedelbi, a Syrian volunteer who lives in Ahrweiler, said his apartment was destroyed by the floods.
“We feel the same as our neighbors. We have experienced that feeling already, and now we have to feel it again,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we are here to help, and we are working hand in hand with the Germans to repair everything.”

Ahrweiler locals were grateful for the help. “They are very fast and hardworking and full of ideas as to how to renovate,” said Elke Terporten. “It is great.”

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