IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – Abdurrahman al-Kamel, 31, a Syrian refugee in the Turkish city of Mersin, said he was afraid of a forcible deportation to Syria after he received a message from the Department of Migration Management in Turkey telling him that his Temporary Protection Card (Kimlik) was deactivated.
On March 30, the Department of Migration in Ankara informed thousands of Syrians who carry the Kimlik that their registration had been fully stopped and their Kimlik had been deactivated.
This message, which according to activists reached more than 150,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey, raised concern of a deportation to Syria.
These concerns were more severe for those wanted by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front) or the Syrian National Army (SNA) factions as if they were deported there, it means their “end”.
The Kimlik is given by the management of the Department of Migration in Turkey to the Syrian refugees, and gives them the right to move freely in the country.
Exaggerated Numbers
On March 27, the Migration Department said that its government “created safe areas in northern Syria with its own abilities, and that about 500,000 Syrians went back there voluntarily.”
However, special sources at the Syria-Turkey Bab al-Hawa crossing, told North Press that the Migration Department’s numbers are excessively exaggerated.
“The number of those who reached Syria is no more than 1,000 since the beginning of the year, and all of them were forcibly deported but not voluntarily,” the source said.
Mounib al-Jalha, a civil activist in Turkey, told North Press that the Turkish authorities had deported hundreds of Syrian young men despite that most of them were legally registered and had work permit (Sigorta), a Kimlik or a college card.
Unfortunately, “the policemen, the immigration employees, and the crossing management did not have the mood to consider the official papers they had,” al-Jalha said.
“The messages that reached thousands of Syrians in Turkey telling them about their Kimlik’s deactivation were written in a coercive manner to force Syrians to resort to the voluntarily return article to northern Syria,” he added.
Ignoring the lack of safety, head of the Syrian National Coalition, Salem al-Maslat, called on Syrians to return to the “safe areas” in northwestern Syria.
Fears of deportation
Three years ago, after his displacement from the town of Kafr Zita, north of Hama, to the al-Karamah camps, north of Idlib, Abdurrahman al-Kamel migrated to Turkey looking for a job, and leaving his 4-member family behind.
But lately he received a massage from the Migration Department telling him that his Kimlik was deactivated, so he did not have a choice but to visit the Department to renew his data, but he could not do that due to the lack of immediate appointments for data renewal.
He pointed out that Mersin city is now uncharacteristically filled with Turkish police requesting every Syrian to show his or her Kimlik.”
Saif al-Halabi, a pseudonym for a 29-year-old Syrian refugee in Istanbul who left his job in one of the Syrian opposition media outlets, fearing to be deported to Syria because “his end will be there” as he put it.
He said his Kimlik-deactivation message reached him last Saturday, so he left his job and has been sitting in his home since then.
Al-halabi’s major concern comes from the nature of the job he did in Idlib before leaving to Turkey, as he was wanted by HTS due to his work for a media outlet, which banned its work in Idlib, as a civil activist.