Freshly dug graves in Turkey await next cohort of drowned refugees

There is a pitiful sight in a quiet corner of a graveyard on a hill above Izmir, Turkey. Numbers – 25422, 25580 written in white paint – have been splashed across black metal poles that stand about a foot high. Underneath the poles small mounds of earth, no more than two feet long, bulge from the ground.

Here lie the bodies of dozens of tiny children who perished in the Aegean waters while trying to reach Greece. There are no names, dates of birth or records of where they died. Before municipal workers cover the bodies with earth, a local imam gives last rites. The children's families, perhaps hundreds of kilometres away in Syria or perhaps themselves drowned, may still have no idea what became of them. Few people may ever come to visit or pray over their bodies again.

After a long winter, the waters of the Aegean Sea have begun to calm and, despite the danger, refugees desperate to reach Europe are returning to the Turkish coast. More than 5,000 people have already crossed to the Greek islands this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Dozens have drowned, including two children among 16 migrants attempting the crossing on April 24th. Hundreds more have been saved or detained on the water by Greek and Turkish coast guards, though the overall number of illegal entries to Greece this year is way down on 2016.

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For eight months, Alaa al-Bakar, a labourer from the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, has waited to save enough money to make the short sea crossing to Chios. He fled Damascus last year after being imprisoned there for three years, and on a recent Friday he could be found sitting outside the Sinibad restaurant in Izmir's Basmane district drinking tea. He hopes to rejoin his younger sisters, who fled the war in Syria for Sweden.

But recently, he says, a new calculation has entered his thoughts. “[Turkey’s president] Erdogan is in a fight with Europe,” he says. “I think it’s possible that he might decide to open the waters for all the Syrians in Turkey to go, if he wants, so I’ll wait to see what happens in the politics.”

Dramatic fall

In March, Turkey threatened to cancel a year-old deal with Europe that has led to a dramatic fall in the number of migrants attempting to reach Greece. The crisis came about when the Netherlands, Austria and Germany banned several Turkish politicians from campaigning in front of expat Turks before last month's constitutional referendum.

“Come back here tomorrow evening at six o’clock and you’ll see this square full of people holding suitcases,” al-Bakar says. Sure enough, by 4pm small groups of men weighed down by backpacks and families dragging suitcases began to form along the nearby Fevzi Pasa Boulevard, but the crowds al-Bakar predicted had not materialised by 7pm.

Still, Basmane remains the central gathering point for migrants to make first contact with smuggling networks. Once a smuggler is found, the migrants are often placed in any of a clutch of two dozen budget hotels – converted offices and homes – offering rooms for as little as €13 a night along a nearby back street. It may take days or even weeks before an attempt to cross to the Greek island of Chios is made, due to sea conditions, police and navy patrols or until smugglers gather together enough migrants to fill a boat.

Al-Bakar says this year police in Izmir have cracked down on migrants loitering in the city centre. “If they see a family with bags that looks like foreigners they ignore them, but when they see single men they are detained,” he says. “If you are caught three times, they send you back to Syria.”

Al-Bakar is among many whose plight remains so fraught with dangers that they are not only willing to pay thousands of euro to unscrupulous smugglers but will knowingly risk their own and their children’s lives at sea. This is despite the closure of the so-called Balkan route and the understanding that, once processed in Greece, they may be returned to Turkey.

Processing period

A hundred kilometres west in Cesme, a town popular with holidaying Turks, a Turkish coast guard vessel sits offshore watching for boats carrying migrants. Several kilometres across the water, a cruise ship can be seen manoeuvring to dock at Chios port. There, and on other Greek islands, about 14,000 migrants and refugees have been stuck for months or years. Some have attempted suicide or gone on hunger strike to protest against the lengthy processing period. Three died on Lesbos in January.

"In the last week I've seen [migrants] come in ones and twos, only at night," says a woman living in a derelict building at the end of a dusty road within view of Chios. "The jandarma [police] come and catch them quickly."

Nato has sent ships to the Aegean to help prevent illegal crossings as part of Operation Sea Guardian, which it launched last October.

The March 2016 migrant deal stipulates that asylum seekers reaching Greek territory would be returned to Turkey and, for every processed individual, Turkey would fly one asylum seeker to a European state for permanent resettlement. However, fewer than 1,000 people have been readmitted to Turkey under the plan and fewer than 3,000 have been resettled in Europe.

In return, the EU has pledged €6 billion to Turkey by 2018 to help pay for its hosting of three million registered Syrian refugees. Brussels is also to ease visa restrictions for Turks wishing to travel to Europe.

But with no sign of easier visa access on the horizon, and Europe criticising the purge of officials following last July's failed military coup, whether Ankara decides to honour the deal this summer is uncertain.

None of this matters in the graveyard overlooking Izmir. Not far from where the children’s bodies are buried are more poorly-marked graves of unidentified drowned adults. Weeds and wild oats have almost covered over the numbered signs that stand next to open, freshly-dug grave plots. Few think they will remain empty for long.