Many refugees that are expelled from Turkey will end up back in the war zones of Syria
enough in Istanbul, says Mahmoud, speaking by phone from a police station on Symi, a tiny Greek island. Jobs were scarce, rents were high. When he heard he was to be sent back to the Anatolian province where he had first registered as a refugee years earlier, he decided instead to leave Turkey altogether. In August Mahmoud paid a smuggler $1,500 for a place on a rubber boat and headed for Symi.
Few countries can claim to have done more than Turkey for the millions fleeing the war in neighbouring Syria. The country has taken in 3.6m Syrian refugees, offering them free public health care and education along with limited access to the labour market. Over 100,000 have been granted citizenship.Opposition parties, backed by public opinion, have long argued that some refugees should be sent packing.
Some will end up back in the war zones of Syria. Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister, says that around 350,000 Syrians have voluntarily returned home. Some say their return was not remotely voluntary. Ibrahim, who came to Turkey four years ago, says he was arrested in Istanbul earlier this summer because he had never applied for Turkish identity papers. Along with other refugees he was put in a bus, driven to the Syrian border and handed over to jihadists.
Turkey’s government insists that it does not deport people without consent. But the ruling-party candidate in this spring’s mayoral election said he would have refugees who committed crimes in Istanbul “grabbed by the ears and sent back”. Officials acknowledge that refugees deemed a threat to public order or security are regularly forced to choose between returning to Syria and a year in a detention centre.
Some of those facing expulsion have gone into hiding. Others have followed in Mahmoud’s wake; he says he saw 200 more refugees arrive on Symi in the two days after he got there. Almost 10,000 Syrians got to Greece in August, mostly by sea, the highest monthly total since Mr Erdogan and thesigned a deal to stem the flow of migrants and refugees into Europe in 2016. As one crisis unfolds on the border with Idlib, another may be brewing on the Aegean.
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