An increase in the number of refugees from Turkey

Since the beginning of October, our team had noted an increase in number of refugees from Turkey staying in informal settlements (so called squats) in the northern border areas between Serbia and EU external borders. As citizens of Turkey can enter Serbia without a visa and stay in the country for up to 90 days, they had been mostly staying in hostels and private accommodations in the northern Serbian cities, while our team met them only rarely in the informal settlements in the border area where they would spend a few hours right before they would try to go on a “game” (an attempt to cross a border).

The majority of refugees from Turkey were Kurdish people who had been persecuted in Turkey due to their ethnic background or their political stance, yet there is a significant number of displaced people from other ethnic and religious minorities, as well as Turkish people who do not feel safe in their country. Also, the devastating earthquake which had hit Turkey in February this year is also on of the reasons why Turkish citizens decided to leave the country – many have been left without their homes and work places, leaving them fighting for bare existence.

During this week, our team provided services to more than 100 Turkish citizens in one of the squats in northern part of Serbia at the border with EU, and a significant proportion of them were women and children younger than 14 years old. As we’ve learned, they had been staying in the squat for a week and during that time the Hungarian border police had forcibly pushed them back to Serbia several times.

In that period, they had been trying to cross the border on a daily basis only to return to the squat and sleep rough there until the next attempt, as they had no funds for a hostel nor access to a camp in Serbia.  

Klikaktiv calls on the relevant authorities in Serbia, as well as the authorities of other countries in the region including the EU Member States, to ensure the citizens of Turkey have an effective access to international protection, as well as to process their asylum applications with particular sensitivity, given the current state of affairs in Turkey.