MB – As many as one million refugees, or one third of those being sheltered across Turkey, will have pre-paid debit cards as part of the European Union’s multi-million-euro aid package. NGOs in Turkey welcomed this project with cautious optimism, arguing it is “insufficient” to cope with the refugees’ social and economic integration into local communities.

Daily Sabah – During a renewed rise in the crossings of illegal immigrants to Greece from Turkey, a migrant boat disaster on Thursday fueled fears of a return to the period before a EU-Turkey deal to curb the migrant flow when migrant deaths were almost a daily occasion.
The Coast Guard and volunteers are scanning the Aegean Sea for 21 migrants who went missing after their boat traveling to Greece from Turkey’s Bodrum sank on Thursday. Six bodies were recovered from sea in two days of efforts while four others were rescued alive.

ORF.at (link in German) – A vessel from the European border agency Frontex brought 70 refugees from the Greek island Lesvos to the turkish town Dikili. It’s the first big repatriation since the EU deal with Turkey from April.
According to the Greek ministry for citizens protection the refugees were all men, 50 of them from Pakistan and other from Sri Lanka, Algeria and Morocco. They either didn’t apply for Asylum or they Asylum application had been rejected.

The Guardian – Turkish officials argue the most vulnerable deserve priority resettlement. Some question whether a degree makes refugees less vulnerable.

More than 1,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey have been blocked from resettlement in the US and other countries because they have university qualifications. The refugees were approved for resettlement by American officials, before being blocked – sometimes just days before their departure date – by the Turkish authorities.

NewsDeeply – Thousands of Syrian refugees are now employed as migrant farm workers across Turkey, and they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation – especially as the government has effectively sanctioned using them as cheap labor.

The Guardian – UNHCR director says aspects of deal are de facto suspended as there are no officers to oversee deportations.

The Intercept – Formerly censored but now fully published documents of Frontex, the European Border Agency, show how Greek Coast Guards shot at migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece.

The Wall Street Journal – ATHENS: A Turkish judge arrived on the Greek island of Chios Tuesday morning requesting political asylum, according to senior Greek officials, as Greece confronts the spillover of Turkey’s mid-July failed coup attempt.

Hürriyet Daily News – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that cooperation with Turkey within the scope of the European Union’s migrant deal was right and without that deal the bloc would not be able to fight human smugglers.

LGBTI News Turkey has written a follow-up statement on the death of Hande Kader, the transgender woman who was killed and burned in Istanbul last week.