Via ABC News – Desperate Syrian refugees fleeing heightened violence in the north-west of Syria are being shot at and beaten at the Turkish border as they try to flee, Human Rights Watch says.
Via Heinrich Böll Stiftung Türkei– On January 17, news about a state hospital in one of the largest districts of Istanbul hit the headlines.
It was reported that within a period of five months earlier in 2017, 115 pregnant girls under the age of 18 came to the Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital, yet the hospital administration did not report the cases to the police despite the official obligation to do so. A female social worker discovered the cases for the first time, after she came across an undocumented case about a 16 years old girl in July 2017. The girl was neither mentioned in the registration system of the hospital, nor in the documents of the social work unit. Thereupon she decided to search previous cases and looked at the period between January 1-May 9, 2017. She found out that there were 115 undocumented girls all under 18, out of which 38 got pregnant under 15 years. 39 of the girls were of Syrian origin.
Via Daily Sabah – Three Pakistani migrants, who were found in an eastern Turkish province, are facing the risk of losing their limbs after they suffered from hypothermia.
Via Hürriyet Daily News – An autopsy conducted at the Famagusta State Hospital into the recent killing of a Nigerian student in the Turkish Cypriot town of Famagusta has confirmed that he died of a cerebral haemorrhage caused by severe blows to the head.
Kennedy Taomwabwa, 28, who was a student of Eastern Mediterranean University, was reportedly abducted from the city center by a group of eight locals who kidnapped him against his will. Taomwabwa was taken home and killed by the group on Jan. 31, according to police officials. Continue reading Investigation deepens into killing of Nigerian student in Turkish Cyprus→
During summer 2016 the Turkish government first announced to grant Turkish citizenship to some Syrians. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said that the first steps have been taking on providing Turkish citizenship to Syrians. In a first stage 30.000 to 40.000 would be granted citizenship, in a move that could grant a total of 300.000 Syrians citizenship.
Via Al-Monitor– Turkey is rightly commended for hosting over 3 million Syrian refugees fleeing the nearly seven-year-old conflict that continues to wrack their country in new and ghastly iterations. Acts of overt aggression against the “guests,” as Turkey formally labels them, are astonishingly rare. But a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) published this week raises alarm bells over their future. Continue reading Hostility toward Syrians could explode in Turkey, ICG warns→
The number of people who agree to “voluntary” return from Greece to their country of origin with the programme of “Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration” of the “International Organization for Migration” (IOM) is significantly higher than the number of deportations to Turkey since the EU-Turkey statement.
What happens to migrants who sign up for the IOM return programme during the process and after the return to their home countries? Why do asylum seekers agree to leave Europe again?
The observation of several cases reveals that many migrants face detention and serious physical and mental harm during and after their participation in the programme of “Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration”.
The International Crisis Group published a new reporton intercommunal violence between Turkish host communities and Syrian refugees in Turkey’s three largest cities: Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
Host community hostility toward Syrian refugees is on the rise in Turkey’s metropolitan areas. In order to defuse tensions and mitigate rising intercommunal tensions, Ankara and its international partners should support long-term strategies for the Syrians’ sustainable integration.
In İzmir’s Konak district, Crisis Group visits a neighbourhood settled densely by Syrians, on August 2017. Copyright: CRISISGROUP
Via AlJazeera– Refugees trying to enter Greece through its northern land border with Turkey have told Al Jazeera they have been threatened and forced to go back, illegal under international humanitarian law.
Via Hürriyet(link in Turkish) – TheRefugee Rights Commission of the Turkish Parliament explains that since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, 276.000 Syrian babies born in Turkey stay in an ‚haymatlos‘[1]status and thus face a risky future with neither Turkish nor Syrian identification papers. By the end of September 2017, the number of Syrian babies born in Turkey was at 276.158 and the details of the report are as follows.
