HRW: Turkey pushes back Afghan refugees to Iran

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Turkey's soldiers are pushing back refugees from Afghanistan to Iran, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today.

Six refugees, five of whom were pushed back, said that soldiers beat them and the people who had traveled with them, according to HRW. the soldiers collectively expelled them in groups of 50 to 300 people as they tried to cross the border, it said. Some families were separated in the process.

"Turkish authorities are denying Afghans trying to flee to safety the right to seek asylum," said Belkis Wille, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Turkish soldiers are also brutally mistreating the Afghans while unlawfully pushing them back."

NOTE • Turkey hosts the world's largest number of refugees with 3.7 million from Syria under temporary protection status and over 400,000 refugees and migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. With the Taliban taking over Afghanistan in August, Turkey has faced a new refugee wave from the country.

HRW said it had remotely interviewed six refugees from Afghanistan, who were hiding in Turkey to avoid being expelled to Iran, between September 25 and October 11.

The refugees, who had fled Afghanistan shortly before or after August 15, when the Taliban took control of Kabul, the capital, said they had traveled to Turkey through Pakistan and Iran.

Smugglers in Iran took them to the mountainous border with Turkey in the middle of the night and told them to run across, they told HRW. Turkey's soldiers started firing above their heads, they said.

Confiscation of belongings

Soldiers forced them back up to three times before they managed to remain in Turkey.

"Once they arrested us, they confiscated our phones, money, food, and anything else we were carrying and burned all of our things in a big fire," one woman said. "I assume they did this to send the message that we should not try to cross the border again."

One man said they stripped the men in his group down to their boxer shorts and burned the clothes and all their belongings, then forcibly returned them.

Broken arms and legs

One man said that soldiers beat them with the butts of their guns and that several men in his group had broken hands, arms, and legs from the beatings. "It took 10 days for the pain to go away, but for my friend it was worse," he said. "He had to get our smuggler to take him to a doctor in Iran who treated him for a broken arm and leg."

Another man said, "The second time I crossed into Turkey, I saw the Turkish soldiers beating people crossing with me to the point that they were covered in blood and had big wounds to their heads. They beat me for about 20 minutes with the butts of their guns and sticks, leaving me bleeding."

Three people from Afghanistan said that while they were not seriously beaten themselves, they saw soldiers brutally beating, including with heavy hoses, others running with them. "There was one very tall soldier, with his face concealed," a woman said. "He was like a madman, wildly beating my brother with a stick and yelling, 'Why did you come here?'"

One woman said that on her third attempt to cross into Turkey with her two children, her brother, his wife, and their child, Turkish soldiers detained her brother and his wife and expelled them, leaving their child with her.

One man said that a man in his group was forced back with him to Iran, while his wife and children were taken to a detention center in Turkey. He said that police arrested him in a town 180 kilometers west of the border and brought him to what looked like a refugee camp that was being used as a detention center, where his group joined about 135 people.

Abduction and ransoms

He and another man said that after they were sent back to Iran with their group, thieves abducted the group and demanded ransoms to release them. "The thieves came in cars and on motorbikes, wielding knives and sticks," he said. "They demanded that we get our families to send US$100 per person. We got our smuggler, who we could reach on the phone, to send them the money, and then of course we owed that money to the smuggler afterward."

The other man said the thieves held them for two days, took all their belongings including cash, beside their phones, and forced them to call their relatives to send money through brokers in Iran.

While most people interviewed said they were forcibly returned close to the border, one said that he and eight of his relatives were deported after they went to a local immigration office in Turkey. He said they went to the office because they were ill and needed to be allowed to go to a hospital.

"When we got there, the authorities arrested us and took our phones and turned them off, so the rest of our family had no idea what happened to us," he said. "They held us for two nights and one day, and only fed us twice ... after the second night they put us onto buses with about 100 other people and drove us to the border. One soldier at the border told us, 'Here is the border. Don't come back. If you do, we will beat you'."

"UNHCR should press Turkey"

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), governments, and other actors should monitor, document, and challenge pushbacks at Turkey's borders, HRW said.

"Governments with embassies in Turkey should support Turkey to register and protect Afghan asylum seekers and press Turkey to allow all agencies working for refugees to freely assist and help protect all Afghans, including those who are unregistered.

"The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Commission, and European states should publicly press Turkey to refrain from summarily expelling Afghan refugees to Iran, where they are at risk of chain deportation to Afghanistan and other serious harms.

"The Commission should closely monitor developments and take into consideration collective expulsions and deportations of Afghan asylum seekers in its cooperation with Turkey on migration control and for its reports on Turkey's accession process and on the European Agenda on Migration." (TP/VK)