Turkey Orders Thousands of Syrian Refugees to Leave Istanbul
Turkey Orders Thousands of Syrian Refugees to Leave Istanbul
(Bloomberg) -- Turkey, home to the largest refugee population in the world, announced measures on Monday to limit the number of Syrian migrants in its largest city, Istanbul.
The governor’s office in Istanbul ordered Syrian refugees initially registered in other cities to return there by Aug. 20 or face forcible transfer. An estimated 200,000 of the more than half a million Syrian refugees in Istanbul were registered elsewhere.
The steps are meant to alleviate a growing refugee problem in Istanbul, the country’s commercial hub that has been hit hard by Turkey’s economic decline. The widening hardship has fanned anger at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party lost a repeat mayoral election in Istanbul, home to more than 15 million people.
More than 3.6 million Syrians have fled to Turkey since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa have joined the stream of migrants. Erdogan’s government reached an agreement with the European Union in 2016 to prevent refugees from reaching Europe. But European concerns about Turkey’s human rights record have blocked implementation of a provision the Turkish government has long sought: visa-free travel for its citizens to EU countries.
To contact the reporter on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Karl Maier
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