'Left to the dogs': migrants at Turkey-Greece border lose hope
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[March 06, 2020]
By Joseph Nasr
EDIRNE, Turkey (Reuters) - When Sawsan al-Musawa heard last week that
President Tayyip Erdogan had opened Turkey's borders for migrants to
cross into Europe, the Syrian mother of four left a refugee camp in
eastern Turkey and headed west to the Greek border.
Six days later, Musawa and her children, including two sons with
cerebral palsy, were camping at a bus station in the border city of
Edirne, tired, frustrated, and angry as their dream of a new life in
Europe came to an abrupt end at the EU frontier.
"Why did he (Erdogan) do this to us if he knew Greece won't let us
cross?" she asked, sitting on a rug near a pile of bags full of clothes
and diapers for her sons, aged 13 and 7, who lay on the ground making
jittery movements and looking scared.
Thousand of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Africa
are camped out along a stretch of the border between Turkey and Greece,
two NATO allies whose relations - never easy - have been further
strained by the migrant crisis.
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Now, many migrants are confused and unsure what to do.
Some like Musawa said they had spent their paltry savings on the
1,300-kilometer (800-mile) journey from a refugee camp outside the
southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep to Edirne in the country's
northwest, near to Greece and Bulgaria.
Others started boarding buses to head back to places across Turkey where
they had built temporary lives, doing menial jobs.
Men, women and children still holding out hope sat on the banks of the
Maritsa river, feeding on biscuits, potato snacks and soft drinks handed
out by aid groups and local charities.
Families started bonfires as the sound of crying babies blended with the
muezzin's call to prayer blasting from a towering white mosque.
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"ERDOGAN IS USING US"
Turkish police have closed the main bridge in Edirne toward the
Greek border to migrants and journalists, allowing only local
residents to pass.
The crisis started last week after Turkey, host to 3.6 million
Syrian refugees, said it would no longer abide by a 2016 deal to
halt migration flows to the European Union in return for billions of
euros in aid.
"Erdogan is using us to press the EU for money," said Tamam Srmini,
a 21-year-old from the Syrian city of Aleppo. "But we have to try.
We have no choice. We have no future in Turkey."
He and six other Syrians were trekking through fields, helped by
maps on their mobile phones, hoping to find a spot shared by friends
where they might be able to cross the border.
Under a metal railway bridge, vans picked up African migrants and
shuttled them on dirt roads toward the border. Villagers cast their
fishing rods nearby undisturbed.
"They are smugglers," said Mohammed Shmbati from Sudan. "They take
50 (Turkish) liras per head, as if it's not enough that the Turkish
government is using us like pawns. Women and children can't walk
there, so they take advantage."
Turkey says it has not asked any Syrian refugees to leave.
"If they choose to stay, they can. If they choose to leave, they
can," the presidency's communications director Fahrettin Altun said.
Back at the bus station, Musawa asks her cousin Taher, who helped
her to reach the border, to chase away street dogs trying to open
biscuit bags.
"We are left to the dogs," she said.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)
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