Escape from Afghanistan: Turkey closes the border

Although Turkey is not a neighboring country, it has been a destination for Afghans who are leaving their homeland for years. But now the Turkish government is closing itself off because the refugees are no longer welcome.

In early summer around 1000 people tried to cross the border with eastern Turkey every day, most of them Afghans. Turkey had already started to better secure its border with Iran, which is more than 500 kilometers long. In view of the expected wave of refugees after the Taliban came to power, the construction of a border wall almost 300 kilometers long was accelerated. According to the government, around half is already finished.

Where the border wall already stands, such as at Caldiran in the province of Van, heavy armored vehicles patrol along the three-meter-high concrete protection. There is a watchtower every two kilometers, explains a border guard, who is not allowed to say this into the microphone. Where it is too mountainous for a wall, thermal imaging cameras and drones are supposed to help track down illegal immigrants and their smugglers.

Up to $ 1500 for the way to Turkey

So far it has been relatively easy to bring migrants from the Iranian to the Turkish side, says one of the people smugglers who is hiding in a house in the provincial town of Van with some Afghan women and men. “The Iranian police are taking money from us,” he explains. “We pay them so that people can cross the border. In Turkey, some police officers take money – but some don’t and send the people back. We’ll send them across the border again, and it’ll work out at some point.”

Business went well, especially in early summer. In contrast to the Western governments, many Afghans apparently already suspected that the Taliban could take power sooner rather than later. At that time, the number of refugees increased extremely, says the hooded man. He and his colleagues would hardly have been able to keep up. However, he did not become rich in the process. He would only make about $ 100 per family brought across the border. The refugees have to pay a multiple. Insiders speak of 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars for the route Afghanistan – Istanbul, also to bribe border officials.

Iran wants to collect refugees at border crossings

This also made it possible for the young Afghan Davut and his family to cross the border. After an arduous and dangerous journey on foot and in delivery trucks, we first went to a mountain village in the border area. “Around one o’clock in the morning they fetched us from the accommodation and said: ‘Come on, let’s go’. The driver drove like crazy and had an accident. Then they just abandoned us and said we have to keep walking, they then collect us again at some point. “

That is now officially over. The Iranian Interior Ministry instructed the border guards not to let anyone into Turkey. Instead, refugees from Afghanistan should be collected and cared for in buffer zones at three border crossings. From there, it would be easier for them to return to their home country, according to a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

That could be one reason why hardly any refugees from Afghanistan are currently arriving in Turkey by land via Iran. Turkish border guards in the province of Van say that just a few weeks ago they tracked down more than 1,000 migrants in some of their neighbors, now there are sometimes only six or seven – or none.

Difficult escape from the Taliban

This is thanks to the wall, says one of the border guards. And the Taliban, who no longer let Afghans out of the country. But it can also be due to the distance. The Turkish migration researcher Orhan Deniz from the Yüzüncü Yil University in Van estimates that the refugees need around 15 to 20 days to cover the almost 2000 kilometers between the Afghan and Turkish borders.

19-year-old Süreyya left Afghanistan three months ago with her sister and her nephews and nieces. First to Pakistan, then through Iran and finally to Turkey. “There is no security in Afghanistan,” she says. “And the living conditions are bad, especially for us women.”

The Taliban have not yet arrived in their village in Herat province, but they were very close, says Süreyya. She is single and studied physics in her third semester. Her sister’s husband was killed in a bomb attack. For the two women with the five children, fleeing to Turkey was very difficult. “We had to walk a lot, uphill and downhill. Sometimes there was no food and no water.”

Süreyya and her companions were picked up by Turkish border guards. They have been sitting in Van for 17 days in one of 25 deportation centers nationwide – with a six-meter-high fence, barred windows and steel cell doors, nothing more than a prison, co-financed by the European Union.

Afghans do not have protection status

Until recently, the refugees were quickly deported from here. But that is currently not possible in the case of Afghanistan. There is still plenty of space, says the director of the deportation center, and there is a capacity for 750 people. He doesn’t want to say how many are there at the moment. Apparently not that many.

How long Süreyya and the others will have to stay there is uncertain. The young woman says she definitely doesn’t want to go back to Afghanistan. “We escaped the war and we want nothing more than a safe life. A simple life by myself, but a safe place for my sister, my nieces and nephews and me.”

From her in Turkey too, says Süreyya, straightening her headscarf. Afghan refugees there face an extremely uncertain future. The Turkish state does not grant Afghans any protection status, such as the Syrian refugees, says Resul Demir, chairman of the Refugees Rights Association in Istanbul.

Authorities tighten controls

Mohammed fled his village in the Mazar-i-Sharif district four years ago, where the Bundeswehr was also stationed. Even then, the Taliban wanted to recruit him and other young men. First he spent two years in Iran, today he lives in Gölcük, about 80 kilometers east of Istanbul. The 23-year-old shares the spacious apartment on the top floor of an apartment building with three other young Afghans. From the open living room window you can even see the sea in some distance.

Mohammed works in a bakery, earns more than the Turkish minimum wage and even got a residence permit. Now the Turkish authorities have not extended his residence permit. He is suddenly illegal: “I only move between work and home. I try to use different routes and avoid the police. Because if I am checked and have no valid papers, they can identify me immediately. One of my friends is happens.”

The Turkish authorities are stepping up action against illegal immigrants not only at the border but also in the cities. In raids in Istanbul, the police took into custody almost 550 undocumented immigrants, including 167 Afghans, within one day, according to the governor. Almost 36,000 Afghans were arrested in Turkey in the first seven months of this year. Almost half of them were deported.

Hunting down migrants, Erdogan under pressure

In doing so, the government is also reacting to an increasingly xenophobic mood among the Turkish population. Parts of the opposition take up this. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the largest opposition party, the CHP, announced that if his party wins the next elections, all refugees will be sent home within two years. Shortly after this statement, migrants were hunted down in a district of Ankara.

Resentment against migrants is also growing in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party. According to a recent survey, 70 percent of AKP supporters see refugees as a problem. They accuse the government of allowing too many refugees into the country, mostly Syrians. That could be the decisive factor in the presidential and parliamentary elections in two years’ time.

Erdogan is driven by his own refugee policy. On the one hand, he is trying to defend the previous course and, on the other hand, to radically change it: “We are quite aware that the wave of irregular refugees is causing unrest and concern,” he says. “Nevertheless, there is probably no other country in the world that has such a low level of crime compared to the number of refugees it has taken in. The fact that the opposition wants to make political profit from individual cases is insidious and dangerous.”

The president is particularly annoyed by opposition leader Kilicdaroglu, who is driving him on the refugee issue. Knowing about the need in Afghanistan, Kilicdaroglu polemics against the talks between the EU and Turkey about a new edition of the refugee pact: “Should we bear the whole burden so that the people in Europe feel comfortable? Should we say: give us some money and us carry all the burden? No, we should rather give them money and they carry the burden. “

The price for the EU could be high

The pressure is having an effect. The government’s willingness to accept more refugees is also at a low point. If you believe Erdogan, then also not for money and good words. The state is primarily responsible for the security and prosperity of its own citizens, Erdogan said in a speech to ambassadors, adding that Turkey is already hosting more than five million refugees and cannot afford an additional migration burden from Syria or Afghanistan.

In other words: If the EU wants to conclude a new refugee deal with Turkey, which also includes the Afghans, then the price is likely to be extremely high. With their demands for more money for refugees, an expansion of the customs union and the visa-free regime for Turks in the EU, Ankara should then have an easy game if many Afghans actually push to the Turkish borders.