IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – Early this month, Na’im al-Ahmad was surprised by the Turkish authorities’ raid of his work place in Fatih district of Istanbul, where they arrested him with 25 other Syrian refugees working with him.
Al-Ahmad, 23, an IDP from Zawiya Mountain, south of Idlib Governorate, northwest Syria, told North Press that despite most of those who were arrested with him were holding a work permit and temporary protection cards, they were transferred to a deportation center.
Al-Ahmad has been working in Turkey to support his family that he left behind in Idlib since 2019. However, he is now in the city of Tel Abyad, north of Raqqa Governorate, northern Syria, after being deported by the Turkish authorities.
After being detained in a deportation center near Fatih district for more than a week, an officer informed everyone in the center, who numbered more than 150 people, that they would be deported to northern Syria the following morning. The officer also gave them the option to choose the area they want to deport into.
“Here I realized that I have no choice but to accept. I only had two options, either being deported to Tel Abyad or the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) north of Hasakah Governorate, northeast Syria, the young man noted.
At first, al-Ahmad refused to choose either Tel Abyad or Sere Kaniye, as he is from Idlib and did not want to go there. However, he was threatened that if he did not choose one of those areas, he would face imprisonment for five months, after which he would be deported to one of the areas he refused. As a result, he had no other option but to choose, and now he is in Tel Abyad.
“What voluntary return are they talking about?” al-Ahmad wondered.
Al-Ahmad is looking for a way to cross to northern Aleppo, and then to his family in Idlib, and the only available option is expensive, dangerous and illegal smuggling routes.
Smugglers are taking advantage of the returnees’ needs, and have raised the price of smuggling one person from Tel Abyad or Sere Kaniye to the city of Jarablus, northeast Aleppo, from $300 to $650.
Recently, Turkish authorities have launched a campaign against Syrian refugees who have been living in Turkey for years, which has brought this issue to the forefront once again.
Despite forcibly deporting Syrians, Turkey cloaks it as a voluntary return. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in May that over a million Syrians will voluntarily return to the safe zone on Turkey’s borders in northern and northwestern Syria.
Similar to al-Ahmad’s experience, Obada al-Nasan, a 31-year-old from Rif Dimashq, was arrested while on his way to the supermarket near his home in Istanbul to purchase some of his daily necessities.
Upon his arrest by the Turkish police, he was swiftly taken to a detention center along with dozens of Syrian men and women. They were detained for three days and then compelled to sign papers for “voluntary return” to Tel Abyad, northern Syria.
Although al-Nasan had no objection to being deported, he requested that his family accompany him, which was declined by the Turkish authorities.
Al-Nasan was deported after three days, after which he was able to tell his family that he was forcibly deported to northern Syria.
Al-Nasan revealed that he is currently living in a residence near the city of Tel Abyad with over 15 individuals from various regions of Syria. They all share two rooms and lack even the most basic necessities for life.
Furthermore, he stated, “The Turkish president claimed that he constructed hundreds of thousands of residential units for those who voluntarily returned to northern Syria. But where are they? We cannot see most of them! Those who are deported are sleeping in the open air without any blankets to cover themselves. We men can tolerate it, but how can women sleep in the streets, mosques, or parks?”
After Turkish forces and their affiliated SNA factions occupied the Kurdish city of Afrin in 2018, following a Turkish military operation dubbed ‘Olive Branch’ which displaced around 300,000 of the original inhabitants, Turkey began implementing its plan to bring about a demographic change in the area.
This was done by establishing settlements for the SNA factions, their families, and IDPs who were forcibly deported from Turkey to the so-called “safe zone.”
Several organizations based in Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, are involved in this process. They fund local associations which sponsor the construction of these settlements. Since then, Turkey has built 112 settlements in the area in the first half of 2023.
Turkey uses local organizations and SNA factions to implement the demographic change process. It gets rid of Syrian refugees on its lands by settling them in these settlements, which are marked with the Turkish flag.
An administrative source from Tel Abyad border crossing told North Press that the total number of deportees to the opposition-held areas in northern Syria through Tel Abyad border crossing since the beginning of July reached more than 2,300 Syrian refugees, including women and children.
According to the source, the daily number of deportees varies between 75 and 200 individuals, none of whom have any relatives in the Tel Abyad region. The Turkish authorities compel everyone to return via the Tel Abyad border crossing.