Turkey deports 200 Syrian refugees to areas under its control

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Turkey has relocated around 200 Syrian refugees in areas of Syria under the control of Turkey and its affiliated groups. SOHR noted in its statement that its sources reported that Turkish authorities deported 200 Syrian refugees to Syrian territory through the Bab Al-Salama border crossing, north of the Azaz countryside in the “Euphrates Shield” area, early on Tuesday morning, in order to resettle them in residential complexes built in the region.

The statement on the deportation reads as follows: “This comes in light of the forced deportation of the Syrian refugees towards Syrian territory “safe zone” that Turkey claims within “Euphrates Shield,” “Olive Branch” and “Peace Spring” areas, which are controlled by Turkish forces and their proxies, implementing their plan to deport Syrians from their lands.
Forced deportation operations are also under the pretext that the Syrian refugees do not have identity documents, but some of the people who were deported had Turkish ‘kimlik’ identity cards.”

SOHR sources also reported that on the first day of Eid al-Adha, Turkish authorities deported 19 Syrian refugees through the Ras Al-Ain border crossing to the area controlled by Turkish forces and their proxies in the “Peace Spring” area in the countryside of Heseke. Moreover, according to the sources, those refugees from different parts of Syria were handed over to the gendarmerie after crossing the border in order to return to their regions later, while others were arrested or detained in prisons on different charges in order to collect ransom for their release. Thus, in less than a week, the number of Syrian refugees deported from Turkish territory to the “Peace Spring” region has increased to 60. As of August 2022, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had also documented hundreds of cases of Syrian refugees being forcibly returned to Syria, regardless of their refugee status.