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In the last five months, nearly 50,000 migrants - including more than 6,000 Syrians - have been deported from Istanbul, Turkey's largest city with 15 million inhabitants. In July, the day after his defeat in the municipal elections in the megacity, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan had significantly tightened the grip on irregular migrants.
With our correspondent in Istanbul, Anne Andlauer
The Turkish authorities are fighting against illegal immigration and are letting it know. Since 12 July, since the Istanbul police began to reinforce its controls in neighborhoods known to host many migrants, some 50,000 people have been arrested.
Nearly 43,000 of them lived in the megacity without a residence permit, which sentenced them to be sent to a detention center with a view to being deported from Turkey. The prefecture does not specify their nationalities, but in a previous assessment, the Minister of the Interior had cited a majority of Afghans and Pakistanis.
The Syrians are counted separately, since Turkey grants them a special status - called "temporary protection" - which gives them the right to reside in the country. Provided, however, that they are registered and actually live in their province of registration. Since mid-July, more than 6,400 Syrians who resided in Istanbul without being registered have been arrested. Officially, they were placed in "temporary reception centers".
The Turkish authorities say they are not deporting the Syrians, but international NGOs denounced last month the dismissal of hundreds of them in their country at war.