Turkey faces greatest refugee inflow in its history

The number of illegal migrants crossing the border in 2010 was 33,000, whereas the recorded number of refugees in the first half of 2011 rose to 35,000. The number of refugees fleeing from Syria to Turkey is now close to 15,000. It is very likely that the number of illegal migrants and refugees in Turkey will reach a record in 2011.

The Interior Ministry states that Turkey is currently facing a massive inflow of people from neighboring countries. The international community has been indifferent to the flow of people, migrants and refugees, to Turkey from North Africa, the Middle East and the Far East for many years.

Data from the Interior Ministry show that due to a tightening of measures the number of migrants and refugees to Turkey had declined since 2006 and some measures put in place had worked well to address incidents of human trafficking. The number of illegal migrants had declined from 57,428 in 2005 to 33,000 in 2010. Turkey, an attractive country for human traffickers and smugglers because of its geographic location, has been referred to by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as one of the riskiest countries in 2011. Turkey’s branch of the UNHCR also warned of a major flow of illegal migrants and refugees this year. Recent developments are proving that the commissioner has a point. Even EU countries had difficulties in dealing with the tremendous influx of people to their countries following revolts in Tunisia and Libya; however, unlike France, which returned refugees to their countries of origin, Italy granted Schengen visas to refugees coming from Libya.

Even UNHCR did not expect this

In its projections for Turkey, the UNHCR envisaged that Turkey would be hosting nearly 37,000 refugees by the end of 2011; currently, there are 16,000 people in Turkey seeking refugee status. Projections were mainly based on predicted inflows from Afghanistan and Iran. According to the commissioner’s report on Turkey, the number of arrivals from Iran was expected to rise from 2,230 in January to 5,550, and the number of Afghan refugees was expected to increase from 370 to 5,420 by the end of 2011. In these projections, the UNHCR did not take into consideration the popular revolts in North Africa and the Middle East.

Unlike earlier projections by the UNHCR, the greatest inflow of refugees originated in Syria rather than in Iran and Afghanistan. Due to this massive inflow, Turkey is now dealing with the greatest movement of people from a neighboring country after the displacement of 450,000 Kurds fleeing the Saddam Hussein regime in 1991. Authorities are now particularly concerned that the overall situation will be exacerbated if the situation gets worse in Syria.

Around 11,000 refugees fleeing the brutality of the Assad regime in Syria have been settled in camps set up in the southern province of Hatay. It is likely that a second wave of arrivals will head for Kilis. In an attempt to take precautionary measures, Turkey has intensified its contact with the Syrian administration. Facing the prospect of a huge flow of people from Syria, Turkey is considering a high-level visit to Damascus before the end of June. The international community has failed to provide any sort of assistance to Turkey, which is meeting all the needs of the Syrian arrivals and accommodating them at five refugee camps around the towns of Yayladağı, Altınözü and Reyhanlı in Hatay province. The silence of EU member countries, which have so far strongly criticized Turkey’s refugee policy, is attributed to the wave of refugees from Libya and Tunisia to these countries. Italy and France have been bitter critics of Turkey because of its refugee policy.

6,000 migrants from Libya and Egypt

Turkey’s initial encounter with a flow of refugees was in January 2011, when people fled Libya, Tunisia and Egypt due to the social upheaval in these countries. Following attacks by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces against rebels in Libya, 22,000 Turkish citizens as well as some foreigners were successfully evacuated from Libya. According to official figures, a total of 23,127 persons were transported from Libya by sea and by air in March 2011. A full 4,178 of these people were foreign passport holders who were held in refugee camps in Marmaris and Dalaman up until their return to their country of origin.