Turkey plans to deport Afghan migrants

The Turkish Interior Ministry has announced a plan to deport nearly 600 irregular Afghan migrants in eastern Turkey back to Kabul, according to Turkish PressTV.

The Afghan migrants initially crossed into eastern Turkey through Iran and were handed over to provincial immigration authorities by Turkish security forces.

Deportation procedures have been completed for 591 migrants in the eastern province of Erzurum and charter flights to Kabul are now being arranged to send the migrants back to Afghanistan, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on 7 April.

“Following the completion of deportation procedures for illegal migrants in our other provinces, deportations will speed up and continue in the coming days,” the statement noted.

According to the Turkish paper Hurriyet, several thousand Afghan migrants have crossed into Turkey in recent months after walking for days from the border to reach Erzurum.

One recent returnee from Turkey, named Nasruddin, told Al Jazeera that the young Afghans who are trying to go to Turkey “are committing a big mistake” because “they don’t understand the pain of going through illegal routes”.
Nasruddin recounts how he walked across deserts and mountains, sometimes walking for hours in freezing cold weather, before he was able to cross the Iranian border.

“I have experienced the mountain crossing, where I have seen dead bodies of people who died of thirst, so many bodies of Afghans dying there,” Nasruddin explained.

Nasruddin is now back in Kabul and runs a restaurant serving local dishes. He no longer plans to migrate irregularly to Turkey.

Photo caption: An Afghan family sitting at a bus station in Turkey’s coastal town of Bodrumon