Amnesty International carried out extensive research in Turkey’s southern border that suggests Turkey authorities have been rounding up and expelling groups of around 100 Syrian men, women and children to Syria on a near-daily basis since mid-January. Last week its researchers gathered multiple testimonies from mass returns at Hatay province to confirm this practice which seems to be an open secret in the region. Under the “non-refoulement” principle of international humanitarian law, a state is prohibited from deporting individuals to a war zone, without any exceptions.

“In their desperation to seal their borders, EU leaders have willfully ignored the simplest of facts: Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian refugees and is getting less safe by the day,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Director for Europe and Central Asia.

Based on the EU-Turkey deal, Syrian refugees arriving on the Greek islands will be immediately returned to Turkey as it is considered a safe country for asylum seekers. In fact, the European Commission expects the first 500 returns to happen on Monday 4 April.

For each Syrian returned to Turkey, a Syrian refugee will be resettled in the EU gradually. Priority will be given to those who have not tried to illegally enter the EU and the number is capped at 72.000. Furthermore, all “irregular migrants” which would include undocumented migrants or rejected asylum seekers crossing from Turkey into Greece will be sent back, starting 20 March. Each arrival should be assessed individually by the Greek authorities.

In exchange for this deal, Turkey also received financial aid and political advantages such as the lift of visa restrictions for its nationals and the re-activation of the process for its accession to the EU.

However, Amnesty International, assessing the deal, said that it already had “disastrous knock-on effects on Turkey’s own policies towards Syrian refugees”. Other human rights organizations, including the UNHCR have expressed similar fears.

Turkey has taken in 2.7 million Syrian refugees since the civil war began five years ago. Many live in camps near the border between the two countries. But, after the deal was signed, Turkey has a strong intensive both to close its borders and force illegal returns of asylum seekers.

“It seems highly likely that Turkey has returned several thousand refugees to Syria in the last seven to nine weeks. If the agreement proceeds as planned, there is a very real risk that some of those the EU sends back to Turkey will suffer the same fate” said John Dalhuisen.

Children and a pregnant woman among those returned

Among the cases revealed by Amnesty International, there were at least three young children without their parents forced back to Syria; an eight-month pregnant woman as well.

Many of those returned to Syria appear to be unregistered refugees, though Amnesty International has also documented cases of registered Syrians being returned, when apprehended without their papers on them. Another practice by Turkish authorities is not to register refugees on purpose, making it legally easier to simply return otherwise officially asylum seekers.

Registration is also required to access basic services. In Gaziantep, Amnesty International met with the son of a woman requiring emergency surgery to save her life but who was denied the ability to register and therefore have the surgery. She eventually was able to register elsewhere and receive the life-saving treatment.

“Having witnessed the creation of Fortress Europe, we are now seeing the copy-cat construction of Fortress Turkey” Amnesty International's John Dalhuisen commented.

Fear is mounting among Syrian refugees that if they attempt to register they will be forced back to Syria, without being given legal access. Amnesty International met with a family of unregistered Syrian refugees in Hatay province who have opted to remain hidden in their apartment rather than trying to register.

Tighter border restrictions

According to Amnesty International, Turkey has even fired shots against refugees trying to cross its borders. “Over the last few months, Turkey has introduced visa requirements for Syrians arriving by air, sealed its land border with Syria for all but those in need of emergency medical care, and shot at some of those attempting to cross it irregularly” said John Dalhuisen. In the recent past, Syrian residents with passports had been able to cross at regular border gates, and those who entered irregularly were also able to register.

Of course, increased border security and the lack of legal routes, once again works at the advantage of smugglers, who are now demanding at least 1.000 US dollars per person, only to get Syrians to Turkey, based on the testimonies of Syrian nationals Amnesty International spoke to on both sides of the border.

Turkey has denied sending back any refugees against their will

Amnesty International does not stand alone, documenting the violations of international law. A BBC report in January also uncovered allegations of refugees being detained in Turkey before being forced to return to Syria.

One refugee said guards had driven them to the Syrian border and forced them to sign a piece of paper on which was written “I want to go back to Syria”.

A similar case reached the news a little earlier in March when a group of Syrians also said they were forced back to Syria without being given access to a legal procedure to seek for asylum.

The Turkish foreign ministry said it had maintained an “open door” policy for Syrian migrants and strictly abided by the principle of not returning people to a country where they are liable to face persecution.

“None of the Syrians that have demanded protection from our country are being sent back to their country by force, in line with international and national law” a foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Testimonies from the Amnesty International Report

A Syrian family whose children were forcibly returned to Syria

An extended family of 24 people lived together in a single apartment in Antakya, Hatay province. They told Amnesty International that five members of their family were forcibly returned to Syria on or around 20 February 2016.

Thirty-year-old M.Z., in Turkey since early 2015, had been able to register. His 20-year-old brother, M.A., and their 11 year-old nephew and two nieces, aged 10 and nine, had arrived in Turkey around two months previously and had not been able to register because they had been told that it was impossible, and that those who tried risked being sent back to Syria.

The two brothers were taking their nephew and nieces to the park to play when they were stopped by police, who demanded their identification papers. The police took all five Syrian refugees to a nearby police station.

Z.Z. – another of M.Z.’s brothers who lived with them in Antakya – told Amnesty International that after learning of their detention, he brought M.Z.’s registration card to the police station, but that the police refused to release any of them.

M.Z. told Amnesty International by phone from Syria that after being detained for a few hours, all five refugees were put on a bus and driven to the Cilvegözü / Bab al-Hawa border crossing in Hatay province.

They were not alone. M.Z. said that there were a total of seven buses, with about 30 people on each bus – mostly families – representing up to 210 Syrian refugees. Two police cars accompanied the buses, and M.Z. told Amnesty International that on his bus there was a Turkish soldier armed with an assault rifle.

M.Z.’s brother followed the buses to Bab al-Hawa but said he was not permitted to speak to his relatives. When they reached the border at about 3am, they were handed over to the Ahrar al Sham armed group. On the Syrian side, M.Z. told a soldier that he had no money to care for the three children. The soldier then drove them to Atma refugee camp, in Syria’s Idlib province.

M.Z. does not know what happened to the other people on the buses. He describes conditions in the Atma camp as atrocious, with no running water or sanitation facilities and completely inadequate food supplies.

M.Z. said that the children have developed skin conditions and that since being in Atma his nephew has developed vision problems.

The five Syrians are still able to communicate with their family in Antakya by phone. The children’s mother told Amnesty International, “They are crying all the time; when they talk I can’t even understand what they are saying.”

Aid groups reported in December 2015 that nearly 58,000 people were living in Atma camp. M.Z. told Amnesty International that he has tried to return to Turkey several times over the past month.

M.Z.’s family in Antakya told Amnesty International that smugglers would charge them about US$1,000 per person to cross, but M.Z. says he only has around 500 Syrian pounds (just over US$2).

Most of the remaining members of the family, including children, are unregistered and remain in their Antakya apartment for fear that they too could be returned to Syria. They rely on registered members of the family to bring supplies to the house.

Two men whose brother and his pregnant wife were returned to Syria

The two brothers said that around 3 March 2016, they were travelling in two cars with their brother and his wife, having crossed the Turkey-Syria border near Yayladağı in Hatay province the same day. About 3km into Turkish territory, Turkish border guards stopped the car in which their brother K.A. and his wife B.Q. were travelling. K.A. phoned his two brothers in the other car to tell them what had happened.

The two men explained to Amnesty International that their brother and sister-in-law were sent back to Syria in a van to the Cilvegözü / Bab al-Hawa border crossing in Hatay province, along with seven other vans carrying Syrian refugees. Each van allegedly transported around 14 people, which represents around 112 Syrian refugees. The brother and his now nine-month pregnant wife are living in Atma camp across from the Turkish border.

A man whose mother required emergency life-saving surgery

A Syrian man said his mother had not been permitted to register in Gaziantep, despite urgently requiring life-saving surgery that could only be accessed with registration.

A doctor had told him that every day that passed without the surgery would endanger his mother’s life. After two weeks of trying to register in Gaziantep, showing numerous medical test results as proof of the urgency of the situation, they gave up and instead convinced the authorities to register her in Kilis, some 60km away. The mother was subsequently able to receive the free medical care she required.

A Syrian man in Azaz who was unlawfully pushed back from the border

The man had been part of a group of around 60 people trying to cross irregularly to Turkey on 20 February 2016. He said that they were apprehended by Turkish border guards and detained in a military barracks near Reyhanlı in Hatay province.

He told Amnesty International he was detained for four hours, and that other people in the barracks (including women and children) were detained for up to 24 hours. He said that the border guards did not provide any food or water, nor access to toilets.