海角大神

Abdel Karim is a boy without a country.听His parents, Adel and Alia Alkhalaf, are Syrian asylum seekers who entered Morocco without visas, and their legal limbo has left their youngest son, born six months ago in Morocco, without citizenship anywhere.

鈥淲e live day by day,鈥� murmurs 29-year-old Adel. The couple has three children: Abdel Karim, with his wide, toothless, sweet smile; Mustafa, an eight-year-old with olive green eyes; and Sileen, a two-year-old troublemaker. She'll spit on your hand and steal your only pen, then run away.

Compared with Lebanon, where refugees now make up a quarter of the total population, or Jordan, which hosts the largest Syrian refugee camp, Morocco's Syrian population is small 鈥� . But without a process for registering them, many are left in legal limbo like the Alkhalaf family, undocumented and unsupported.

鈥淭here may be thousands of Syrians in Morocco, we don鈥檛 know,鈥� says Mark Fawe, of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Rabat, the capital.

The Alkhalafs went to UNHCR for identity cards, but left empty-handed. The organization has stopped issuing and renewing cards for Syrians seeking asylum a year ago, handing over the process 鈥� and the pending cases of 843 Syrian asylum seekers 鈥� to Moroccan officials.

Fawe, the UNHCR official, characterized this move as a 鈥渞evolution,鈥� the first step in assuring temporary legal protection for asylum seekers. But听Syrians' cases have stalled under the Moroccan government's purvey. The听Office for Refugees and Stateless Persons opened in September, but it is not fully operational.

Moroccans started noticing Syrian asylum seekers last fall, begging at the mosques on Fridays and in the parking lots of grocery stores. Many of the refugees have joined the African migrants camped out on the Moroccan side of the fence setting apart the Spanish enclave of听Melilla. There, they wait for a window to scale the fence into European territory. Today, .

Conflict is also escalating between Morocco and Algeria, with Morocco blaming Algeria for expelling 77 Syrians onto Moroccan territory earlier this year.

Room No. 3

Adel and Alia Alkhalaf fled their Mediterranean city of Latakia to Damascus, Syria鈥檚 capital, then flew to Algiers, Algeria, and traveled west by bus, crossing the border into Oujda, Morocco, in August 2012. 听They stayed in Marrakesh for awhile, then eventually made their way to Hotel Africa in Rabat, joining dozens of Syrians living there.

The four-story building is at capacity and has only a handful of bathrooms. But with two beds, a cupboard, a sink and stove, Room No. 3 is a functional home at 100 dirhams ($12) a night.

Though it is already 10 in the morning, Adel鈥檚 eyes are puffy as he brews coffee. The children are still asleep. Sileen is hugging the wall on one bed, which she shares with Abdel Karim and her mother. Mustafa sleeps on the other bed, which he shares with his father. Alia, who is 25 but looks older, pulls her black djlellabah over her pink-gray pajamas as she sits on the bed by Mustafa鈥檚 feet. She speaks with taut lips and stares with blank eyes, explaining that the听children don鈥檛 go to school because they lack the necessary papers.听

Karim has a birth certificate, but no other form of identification. 鈥淚t鈥檚 impossible for us to go anywhere now because of the child,鈥� Adel says. 鈥淲e registered him, but the Syrian embassy in Rabat is closed鈥� We just want papers [then] maybe we can go back to Syria.鈥�听

Even if they manage to receive legal status in Morocco, Syrians may be harmed for generations to come, says Joshua Landis, a Middle East expert from the University of Oklahoma studying the impact of the Syrian civil war.

鈥淪yrians have been terrified of becoming the next 鈥楶alestinians鈥� who don't have papers and are unwanted and unprotected by any government,鈥� Mr. Landis explains. 鈥淭his generation of Syrians is already being called a lost generation. The entire upper class has departed. The best educated and most talented Syrians have either left the country or are desperately seeking to leave.鈥�

Adel used to own a shop in Latakia, where he sold imitation clothing brands imported from Turkey. 鈥淭imberland!鈥� is the only word he鈥檚 said in English. Now his wife goes and begs at a nearby mosque with their children. 鈥淪he only goes when we have financial pressure, at the last prayer of the day,鈥� Adel says.

He talks about the Syrian regime, hurriedly, like a topic best left alone.

鈥淚 was against the regime,鈥� he admits, 鈥渟ome of my friends died, members of my family, too... Someone walks with you, and he鈥檚 gone in a second.鈥�

Ella Ba艅ka spent several months in Morocco on an SIT Study Abroad program and produced this story in association with听, a nonprofit organization that mentors the next generation of international journalists.听Mounira Lourhzal contributed to reporting.