Refugees’ Visit Over

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Are Syrian refugees being deported?

There is a claim on everyone’s lips and given voice by rights organizations finally: Refugees are being collected from their settlements in İstanbul, İzmir and other provinces, delivered firstly to deportation centers and finally to their home countries.  

NGOs we have interviewed have mentioned that they have talked to deported families but there was not enough data yet to determine whether deportations are general policy.

Attorney Gülsüm Kayacan from Peoples’ Bridge Foundation states that “The camps are closed for outside and no information can be obtained about the ones who have been sent there”.

Is the new deportation center in Osmaniye?

Six different rights organizations made a statement supporting the claims yesterday declaring that the “things have changed” following the last agreement signed with the European Union.

From yesterday’s joint-statement of Peoples’ Bridge Foundation, Istanbul Chamber of Medicine, Our Commons, Societal Disaster Platform, Okmeydanı Mutual Aid Society, Tarlabaşı Immigrant Solidarity Kitchen:

”Reportedly, refugees are being collected from large cities and being delivered to Osmaniye. A de facto application has been introduced where refugees are forced to submit documents confirming that they want to return to their home countries.”

From Süleymaniye to Syria

According to the claim of volunteer from Immigrants’ Solidarity Network, the Syrian-Kurdish family to which the volunteer was in touch with, has been taken from their home in Süleymaniye and delivered first to a center in Osmaniye and finally deported to Syria from there.

”They have been living in a ruined building on rent, police have came, picked and taken them to Osmaniye. The last time we spoke, they had been in the camp. They were forced to sign a document saying ‘I am going to the camp at my own will’. Today (two days ago) we have received the information that they have been deported. Also in Çanakkale similar practices have been reflected in the press. As if everywhere a button has been hit simultaneously…”.

“Nothing like home”

The allegory of “hitting the button” is not unjustified when the new agreement with the EU is considered.

For instance, according to a report from Kilis, approximately 200 refugees have been passed through Öncüpınar Border Check-Point to Syria following registration procedures done by authorities from the mobile service unit of Directorate General for Migration Management in the garden of Provincial Directorate for National Education. One among the returners has stated the motive as “There is no place like one’s home”!

25,000 have been “sent” from Çanakkale

Another report: On an operation launched on October 5, in four days 2,933 refugees in total have been “captured” on the shore by the prosecution within the knowledge of Çanakkale Governorship.

“Since the new year, gendarmerie has caught 48,622 refugees on the shores of Çanakkale in 1,038 different incidents. Besides 25,012 refugees located on 744 vehicles during vehicle control, have been sent back to their home countries.”

“Deportation center” in the stadium

Another similar report from İzmir. “In İzmir, where the number of refugees escaping from the civil war in their countries increase, Syrians collected during controls are being delivered to tent and container cities with better opportunities. In the ‘Repatriation Center’ located in the Atatürk Stadium, staff members of Directorate General for Migration Management inform the refugees on unfavorable situations which they might experience during illegal transitions”.

Guardian daily has also reported that “After surviving sinking boats and being kept in camps in Turkey, refugees who could not afford a flight ticket have been  threatened to be deported to Syria”.

“A shortcut to deportation”

Although solid evidence on the deportation of Syrian refugees have not come to daylight yet, we at least have the information on the block of their arrivals. Human Rights Watch Organization (HRW) has expressed in their statement from last week, that "Turkey has almost closed all borders to Syrian refugees and is sending all the refugees caught while crossing the border”.

Syrians have explained the HRW, that border attendants hold them back at the border or about, beat them in some cases and push tens of refugees back to Syria or deport them together with hundreds of others on the shortcut after arresting.

“Refugees are subject of bargain”

It is already a well-known fact that Turkey is going to introduce the Readmission Agreement.

In his statement to bianet, Refugee Rights Coordinator Volkan Görendağ from Amnesty International Turkey Branch has described the refugee agreement which included the term of paying Turkey 3 million Euro as follows:

“Refugees have been made subject of bargain between EU and Turkey. Besides visa exemption, this has also caused a danger of neglection of human rights violations in Turkey by Europe”.

Readmission Agreements regulate “the repatriation of persons residing unlawfully in a state or a bordered group of states, to contracting state of source or the state of last transit pass.

4 star “Compulsory camps”

The camps are like a closed book, a greater part of the refugees are unregistered/undocumented and therefore their entries and exits are not under the supervision of rights organizations or others. While the living conditions are getting worse with time passing, also the situation of the refugees is miserable according to the bit of information we can get from the camps.

Under these circumstances a last report on the “4 star repatriation centers” seems proper for the closing:

“In the Ayvacık District of Çanakkale Province, an up-to-date 4 starred hotel quality repatriation center with 400 beds is being build for refugees captured on their way to Europe to stay until deportation.” (AS/DG)