Turkish border guards have killed or beaten and injured more than a dozen Syrian asylum seekers as they tried to cross into Turkey, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued on Tuesday. “5 people among them a 15-year-old boy have been killed and 14 wounded during the months of March and April”, the HRW said.
Turkish border guards are shooting and beating Syrian asylum seekers trying to reach Turkey, resulting in deaths and serious injuries, Human Rights Watch said today. The Turkish authorities should stop pushing Syrian asylum seekers back at the border and should investigate all use of excessive force by border guards.
During March and April 2016, Turkish border guards used violence against Syrian asylum seekers and smugglers, killing five people, including a child, and seriously injuring 14 others, according to victims, witnesses, and Syrian locals interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry maintains the country has an “open-door policy” for Syrian refugees, despite building a new border wall.
“While senior Turkish officials claim they are welcoming Syrian refugees with open borders and open arms, their border guards are killing and beating them,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Firing at traumatized men, women, and children fleeing fighting and indiscriminate warfare is truly appalling.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed victims and witnesses involved in seven incidents between the first week of March and April 17, in which Turkish border guards
- shot dead three asylum seekers (one man, one woman, and a 15-year-old boy) and one smuggler;
- beat to death one smuggler;
- shot and injured eight asylum seekers, including three children, aged 3, 5, and 9;
- severely assaulted six asylum seekers.
Syrians living near the border also described the aftermaths of the shootings and beatings, including Turkish border guards firing at them as they tried to recover bodies at the border wall. One witness filmed a number of the dead and surviving victims and shared the videos with Human Rights Watch.
Warning! graphic video
On May 4, Human Rights Watch sent a letter with these findings to the Turkish interior minister, urging Turkey to investigate the allegations made by Human Rights Watch, to order its guards not to shoot at asylum seekers, and to re-open its border to Syrians seeking safety.
Full Human Rights Watch report here
Meanwhile, Turkey’s ruling party lets Europe know that Turkey would send refugees to Europe if the visa-free for Turkish citizens is not implemented. The European parliament is debating Turkey’s progress in fulfilling requirements for visa liberalization in its plenary session on Wednesday in Strasbourg.
“If they make a wrong decision, we would send refugees,” Burhan Kuzu said on Twitter. In a phone interview with Bloomberg, the former adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and senior member of the ruling AKP party added:
“If Turkey’s doors are opened, Europe would be miserable.”
PS This is open-borders and open-arms policy, this is firing-arms and open-heads policy, Turkish style.
I admire ANY country that kills illegal filth. No guns. No problem. Use sharp steel.
Fences against Maya who live and wander since thousands of years in their land stolen by Europeans?
After South Africa all other Apartheid nations will fall, filthy illegal states like Turkey in Kurdistan, Canaduh, New Zealand, Amerikkka and Australia, enough is enough, the Ottomans had also to leave after 400 years.
Really? you’d better look out for yourself then, as you are an obvious target, with that sort of dirty mentality.
Really? Well I do hope you aren’t living in Greece as you, yourself are an immigrant too!
These refugees are being sent to the EU deliberately, to destroy the European countries as we know them – to re-draw the boarders & to re-distribute the land masses – to new ownership.
You think you are so hot – that you are the human being in all of this / the victim in all of this & you are inconvenienced – you poor fool.
One day soon – you, yourself will be a refugee – when you hear gun shots duck man.
The best solution will be to have a 2nd EU with Turkey together with all racist anti-refugee nations, they already work together perfectly because they all love to have dictators.
You Kate seem very violent and what a horrible thing you wrote?? Who says the undocumented Syrians are filth??? The Syrians I saw near Elliniko seemed quite hygenic and freshly bathed, so not sure what filth you are talking about?? Have you ever considered that maybe if you saw one or two “filthy” Syrians it could be that they just arrived and had not had a chance for a bath???? I’d like to see how clean and pretty Miss Kate would be after swimming for days??? Filth, get real Kate!!! That was truly a stupid comment I think