Via Anadolu Ajansı (Link in Turkish) – In two separate incidents in the Uzumlu county of Erzincan, 157 illegal migrants were arrested.

The gendarmerie teams were controlling on the Eastern Express train, which travels from Kars to Ankara, when they realized that a group of 40 people, nationals from Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of them women, 3 of them children, where holding fake documents.

The documents, that the migrants organized by themselves, looked as if they were given out by the Provincial Migration Administration of Kars. They entered the country irregularly, organized fake documents and tried to go to Ankara by the train from Kars. Finally, they were arrested.

In another case, the Üzümlu District Gendarmerie Command, which controls the roads on the Erzincan-Erzurum highway, saw a large group of people in Balaban Sarıkaya and Karakaya villages walking towards Erzincan. It has been determined that these 117 migrants, (13 women, 6 children) from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, had crossed to Turkey irregularly.

A truck driver, Aliebker T., and the 117 migrants were taken into custody. Aliekber T, stated that he drove the migrants across the border, because he was in need of money. He was arrested for “human smuggling”.

In total, 157 migrants were taken to the Gümüşlü District Gendarmerie Command by bus. Migrants who passed through health check at the County State Hospital were brought to a sports hall in the district center for the purpose of deportation.