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Syrian refugees on the way from Turkey to Syria

Photo: Erdem Sahin / EPA

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Turkey of illegally returning refugees to northern Syria. Despite catastrophic conditions in the north of the civil war country, Turkey has "arrested, detained and summarily deported thousands of Syrian refugees" since at least 2017, the organization wrote in a report on Thursday. The refugees were often forced to sign that they were returning “voluntarily”. Human Rights Watch cited interviews with refugees, human rights groups and a border official. When asked, Ankara initially did not comment on the allegations.

More than three million Syrians are currently living in Turkey under temporary protection, which legally protects them from a forced return to Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to settle refugees in northern Syria in areas he describes as “safe zones”. His government says that around 600,000 Syrians have already returned voluntarily.

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Over the past year, Turkey has increasingly been sending Syrians back through the Tal Abjad border crossing, which has been under the control of Turkish-allied rebels since 2019, the HRW report said. Although Turkey claims that it wants to transform the areas it controls in northern Syria into so-called "safe zones", in reality there are repeated human rights violations in the areas. It was only at the beginning of March that HRW accused Turkey of being responsible for abuses in areas under its control in northern Syria. Ankara sharply rejected the allegations.

Turkey has carried out several military operations in northern Syria since 2016, primarily targeting the Kurdish militia YPG. The Turkish military controls border areas there and supports, among other things, the rebel group Syrian National Army (SNA), which consists of several groups.

mfh/dpa