When Rawan Bertawi, a 22-year-old Syrian refugee living in Denmark, reported moving her to the warehouse of a cosmetics company one day in mid-December, she found that her book was not working. He felt that something was wrong.
Her troubled manager called her to his office and showed her an e-mail he had just received from the Danish immigration service: her refugee status – along with her right to work – had been revoked and she would have to leave the country.
Ms Bertawi and her family are among dozens of Syrian refugees who have been deprived of their residence visa by Denmark and have been told to return to their war-torn country because the Danish government now considers Damascus – where they had previously lived – safe. Human rights groups dispute the claim that any part of Syria is safe for returnees.
But since Denmark severed formal diplomatic relations with Syria near the start of the civil war a decade ago, it is unable to deport Syrians. Instead, it places those who no longer have legal status in detention camps, a policy that aid groups say is aimed at putting Syrian pressure to return to Syria voluntarily.
“This is ruining people’s lives,” said Ms Bertawi, who left for Denmark in 2015 when she was 15. “Why would you wait until now that we have integrated and now we consider this our country and we have reached this stage and now you tell us to go? ”