Thousands of illegal migrants searching for a new life in the European Union are being deported from Greece to Turkey. But many of these migrants aren’t Turkish, so they’re ending up in the limbo of refugee camps. Each day, police vans deliver batches of illegal migrants to the Gaziosmanpasha detention centre, an hour’s drive north of Istanbul. The migrants have been deported from Greece, an entry point into the European Union, where they had hoped to start better lives. There are several hundred migrants in this camp, and for most of them, like Sadoon Mahmoud, the failed bid to enter Europe was made at great cost. He paid 5,000 euros ($7,000) to human traffickers to take him from Iraq to Greece. His journey took him 10 days across a wide range of terrain, including mountains, and after all of that, authorities in Greece sent him back to Turkey. None of the migrants in the camp want to be in Turkey and each new person sent back from Greece only adds to the growing feeling here that Turkey is paying for a EU problem. Earlier this month Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis accused Ankara of not honouring its commitments to stem migration, and there have been reports of Turkish security forces refusing to accept migrants being deported back from Greece. A recent EU migration report also criticized Ankara, and while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan angrily rejects these charges, Ahmet Icduygu, an expert on illegal migration at Istanbul’s Koc University, says there is a problem that both sides have to face up to.
EU IMMIGRANTS HELD IN TURKEY
Thousands of illegal migrants searching for a new life in the European Union are being deported from Greece to Turkey. But many of these migrants aren’t Turkish, so they’re ending up in the limbo of refugee camps
