How many refugees are really in Turkey? Short before the EU-Turkey Summit, Turkish media have been claiming that 3 million Syrian refugees were in Turkey awaiting to come over to Europe. The certainly exaggerated number Thus to create panic. But what are the real numbers of refugees in Turkey? Did Ankara lie to European Union about the numbers just to push for 3billion+3billion euro until the end of 2018? Numbers of people used for propaganda?
The devil is hidden in details – as usual:
According to data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the number of registered Syrian refugees are 2,715,789 as of 6. March 2016.
But the numbers refer to registration accumulating since 2012.
But not all of these registered Syrian refugees have stayed in Turkey. More than a million of them have left Turkey for Europe?
According to UNHCR:
1,000,573 refugees arrived in Europe via Greece and Italy alone in 2015, a total of 856,723 reached Greece from Turkey.
In the first months of 2016, a total of 144,149 refugees cross the Aegean Sea and arrived to Greece – according to UNHCR via Frontex.
“If someone adds the official numbers of people who have arrived in Greece and subtracts these number from the official 2,715,789 refugees officially registered in Turkey, then you realize that the number of refugees located in the neighboring country is about almost half of what it has been claimed, that is about 1.5 million registered Syrian refugees,” Greek website OnAlert.gr notes.
This possible discrepancy was first mentioned by Elias Kouskouvelis, professor at Macedonia University, on Twitter on 14. March 2016.
But these numbers could be wrong as well. Then not all arrivals are Syrina Refugees. and furthermore, Turkey plays with the Syrian refugee numbers only and excludes all the other nationalities currently in its soil.
Data based on arrivals between 1. Jan – 6. March 2016: 144,149 arrivals in Greece via the Aegean sea:
49% Syrian refugees 26% Afghans, 16% Iraqis, 3% Pakistanis, 3% Iran, 3% others.
How many Syrian refugees left Turkey in 2015? I posted a question to UNHCR & UNHCR Greece hoping to get an answer.
If anyone thought that the statistical data from Turkey could be relied o, then they must have been very stupid. Nobody has any data other than state data for all of Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc. There are no UNHCR or Frontex datasets. You either believe the data or you don’t: there is no way to check them without doing rigorous research with the co-operation of the State. It is not possible for journalists to guess anything, and they should be asking experts — which they do not. Only fake experts, when it suits them.