SYRIA-LEBANON-TURKEY Syrian refugees tortured and killed on the Turkish border, in danger of being deported to Beirut

A Human Rights Watch report aggravates the accusations of abuses and violations committed by Ankara: border guards operate in a framework of “long-standing impunity”. Since the beginning of the year, at least 12 dead and 20 injured, including very young. Meanwhile, intolerance and hostility towards refugees grow in the country of cedars.

Damascus () – New allegations of abuses and human rights violations against Syrian refugees in Turkey, while in Lebanon the risk of deportation is becoming more and more real, in a climate of growing intolerance. In a report published yesterday, the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced that Turkish border guards do not hesitate to “shoot, torture and use excessive force” against Syrians who “try to flee a country devastated by war” and more recently by the earthquake. The organization reproduces the -incomplete- data of a local group that monitors hostilities and has documented at least 277 episodes between October 2015 and April 2023.

Appealing to the Turkish authorities, HRW calls for a thorough investigation into the actions of the border guards, allegedly responsible for “serious human rights violations, including murders”, in a framework of “long-standing impunity”. “Turkish border guards – the New York-based organization continues – shoot indiscriminately at Syrian civilians at the border… in addition to torturing and using excessive force against asylum seekers and migrants trying to cross. border”.

Turkey’s “generous reception” – in the past on behalf of a later rejected Islamic fraternity – of large numbers of Syrians “does not absolve it of its obligations to respect the rights of those who seek protection at its borders,” says HRW. The group refers to an incident on March 11, when border guards “intercepted and tortured a group of eight Syrians” trying to cross the border, “killing a boy and a man” and repatriating the others.

“Turkish police – explains Hugh Williamson, director for Europe and Central Asia at HRW – and the armed forces responsible for border control routinely mistreat and shoot Syrians indiscriminately along the Syrian-Turkish border, and there are hundreds of deaths and injuries registered in recent years”. “The arbitrary killings of Syrians are particularly egregious and are part of a pattern of brutality by Turkish border guards – he adds – that the government has not been able to effectively stop or investigate.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group that keeps track of the victims of these years of war, reported the killing by Turkish hands of at least 12 Syrians since the beginning of the year and the reported injuries of 20 others. Despite officially closing its border with Syria, Turkey has for years allowed entry for humanitarian and medical reasons, sometimes allowing Syrians to return home to visit relatives during major holidays. However, since the devastating earthquake on February 6 hit both countries and killed tens of thousands of people, Ankara has tightened border restrictions.

The situation is no better in Lebanon either, where the local population views refugees with growing intolerance, whom they consider to be one of the main culprits in the economic crisis the country is going through. The Beirut authorities speak of some two million Syrians in their territory, while those officially registered with the United Nations exceed 800,000, the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. The government – and in some cases even some religious leaders – have long invoked or promoted repatriation policies, in some cases trying to pass them off as “voluntary”. And in recent weeks the army has intensified its repression against people detained without documents, arresting around 450 and deporting 66. That is why Amnesty International has called on the Lebanese authorities to “immediately” stop the deportations, especially since the Refugees are at risk of “torture or persecution” when they return to their country of origin.