Via Daily Sabah* – Bulgaria has rejected the asylum requests of all Turkish citizens who entered the country through various routes in the first eight months of 2017.
According to official information obtained by Anadolu Agency, 12 Turkish citizens applied for asylum in Bulgaria for various reasons until September this year. Seven of these all-men applicants were aged between 18 and 34, while the remaining five were aged between 35 and 64.
Via The Guardian – Twelve migrants, apparently from North Africa, have been sailing to and fro between Istanbul and Odessa on a Danish passenger ferry for the last seven weeks, locked in four cabins with no country willing to take them.
Via The Sofia Globe – Boats carrying more than 200 refugees were stopped by the Romanian Coastguard on Saturday, according to reports in Austrian and Romanian publications. They had started in Turkey. The article can be read here.
Via Independent – After activists intervened at Heathrow Airport, the pilot of a Turkish Airlines flight refused to fly to Istanbul with a young Afghan man aboard, whom British authorities wanted to deport to Afghanistan. The article can be read here.
Via Daily Sabah Turkey – Security forces intercepted 150 Syrian refugees who boarded a fishing boat to Romania from the Black Sea city of Kastamonu on a route probably used for the first time by migrants trying to reach Europe.
Via The News York Times– The mayor of Lesbos has accused Turkey of failing to honour its end of the €3 billion EU deal to stem the flow of migrants into Europe.
Spyros Galinos says that an increase in arrivals on the Greek island after a 16-month lull that followed the signing of the deal, shows that Turkey is reneging on its obligations to police the people-smuggling industry. More than a million people travelled from its shores to Greece in 2015 and last year. Continue reading Turkey accused of breaking EU migration deal→
Via NTV– Already 30.000 Syrians who want to spend Eid al-Adha (Sacrifice Feast) in their homecountry already crossed into Syria from Turkey’s border gate in Kilis.
Asylum seekers who want to go back to Syria for a short period of time and then turn back, need the permission of the governor. A total of 47.322 Syrians applied to leave the country for the Sacrifice Feast, already 30.000 left. Long queues are already forming at the 7 control points at the Syrian-Turkish border.
Via Keep Talking Greece – Does President Recep Tayyip Erdogan let the EU-Turkey deal on migration go burst? A significant increase in the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey has been recorded in the last six days. A total of 1,196 people arrived in the Greek islands of northern and eastern Aegean Sea in the time Friday, August 18th – Wednesday, August 23rd 2017. Continue reading 1,190 new refugees arrive in 5 days. Does Erdogan let EU-Turkey deal go burst?→