Syrian Refugees Think North St. Louis Is Worse Than A Refugee Camp

Rob Fox8 years ago

What a perfect story to post the day the Chicago Cubs play their first World Series game since the end of World War II. Maybe next the Rams will win the Super Bowl and Anthony Bourdain will do an hour long special about how he thinks Imo’s Pizza is ass. (It’s wonderful. All in disagreement can get bent.)

After escaping war in their homeland, some Syrian refugees are afraid of getting shot in their new home – in north St. Louis.

Syrians living at an apartment complex near Page and Hodiamont met with their neighborhood Alderman, and with a representative of the agency that placed them here, the International Institute.

The hour-long meeting dealt with complaints of gunfire in the night, roaches, mice, and rats.

One Syrian woman, speaking through a translator, says it’s so bad she phoned friends at a refugee camp in Jordan to warn them not to come to St. Louis.

“8 p.m. we cannot leave our apartment,” the translator said, “And if we want to leave, we need to be in a group. No one can leave the apartment as a single, or with one other — no– we need to be in a group.”

As a St. Louisan I’m not even going to try to sit here and act like North St. Louis isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. It is. In fact, I used to jokingly refer to it as a war zone. Now that people from an actual war zone are saying they’re terrified of it, I guess my hyperbolic joke no longer works. Going to have to upgrade it to, “Yeah, North St. Louis is hell.” Can’t wait for the now inevitable headline, “Demon begs local exorcist to send it back to the underworld after possessing body in North St. Louis.”

You might be thinking to yourselves, “Oh, North St. Louis, is that like Ferguson?” No. Though Ferguson is on the north side of town and has some rough spots, it also has areas that are fine to nice, and it’s several miles away from what is considered “North St. Louis.” I would never feel afraid driving through Ferguson at night. If I somehow took a wrong turn and wound up at, say, exactly where these refugees live, I’d be driving through tears and doing 80 through red lights to get back to civilization. Fun Ferguson/North St. Louis fact: after you saw Ferguson burning live on TV, a lot of locals there blamed the looting and arson on, you guessed it, people who came from North St. Louis to take advantage of the chaos. And everyone in St. Louis was basically like, “Oh yeah that makes sense.”

This is a pretty solid kick to the groin of St. Louis civic pride. God we need a win..

[via KMOX]