Ukip candidate sparks outrage after blaming Aylan Kurdi's 'greedy' parents for his death

A Ukip candidate has sparked outrage after criticising the parents of the Syrian child pictured washed up dead on a beach - for being "greedy for the good life in Europe". Peter Bucklitsch, who finished fourth in the Wimbledon constituency at the General Election, shocked Twitter users by claiming that the three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was "well clothed & well fed". ie suggested the boy's parents should not have risked his life by trying to make the 13-mile journey across the Mediterranean from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

In a shocking post on Twitter, he added: "Queue jumping costs". He also made the remarkable claim that Turkey "is not a place where the family was in danger" and said: "Leaving that safe place put the family in peril".



In a shocking post on Twitter, he added: "Queue jumping costs". He also made the remarkable claim that Turkey "is not a place where the family was in danger" and said: "Leaving that safe place put the family in peril".
 

The little Syrian boy was well clothed & well fed. He died because his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe. Queue jumping costs.
— Peter Bucklitsch (@bucklitsch) September 3, 2015

Predictable unthinking outrage. Turkey is not a place where the family was in danger. Leaving that safe place put the family in peril.
— Peter Bucklitsch (@bucklitsch) September 3, 2015

 
His posts triggered a furious backlash on Twitter, with users describing him as "evil," "heartless" and "unbelievably cruel," while high profile figures such as Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and ex-footballer Stan Collymore also denounced his remarks.Mr Bucklitsch is understood to have been expelled by the Liberal Democrats in 2011 after he stood for the Conservatives in a council election. Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, took to Twitter to denounce his comments:
 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-candidate-sparks-outrage-after-blaming-aylan-kurdis-greedy-parents-for-his-death-10484911.html


What an utter twat.

According to reports, there had been no application for the family to go to Canada, but that doesn't stop people blaming the Canadians of course.

Oh, and the British - because it's their fault that someone got in a leaky boat.

What has that got to do with his vile comments?

Poor deflection yet again.

that family had been in turkey for some time, a safe country where the father had worked for 3 years. there was no need for them to put young kids in a rubber boat to try a treacherous sea crossing in the middle of the night. There are hundreds of young syrian kids living quite happily within spitting distance of where I live and they have been living here for many years now, quite safely.
I was renewing my residence permit the other day at a government office and there was a big line of syrians waiting to collect their monthly money that the turkish government gives them.

They are allowed to open business's and they are granted citizenship here far quicker than other nationals.

Most the syrians I have met, and I have met a lot, are decent hard working people who just want the war to end so they can go home and rebuild.

One chap I met came from Alleppo and had been bombed by Assad, the FSA and Daesh, he makes money by selling scarves and other small items along the beach, he wants to return as soon as it is safe.
2 million syrians are living on turkish soil now. there are ½a million or more in my town alone. the local park is now known as little syria. there are some turkish towns where syrians outnumber locals by several times.
those leaving turkey are more economic migrants than refugees.

The Devil, You Know wrote:that family had been in turkey for some time, a safe country where the father had worked for 3 years. there was no need for them to put young kids in a rubber boat to try a treacherous sea crossing in the middle of the night. There are hundreds of young syrian kids living quite happily within spitting distance of where I live and they have been living here for many years now, quite safely.
I was renewing my residence permit the other day at a government office and there was a big line of syrians waiting to collect their monthly money that the turkish government gives them.

They are allowed to open business's and they are granted citizenship here far quicker than other nationals.

Most the syrians I have met, and I have met a lot, are decent hard working people who just want the war to end so they can go home and rebuild.

One chap I met came from Alleppo and had been bombed by Assad, the FSA and Daesh, he makes money by selling scarves and other small items along the beach, he wants to return as soon as it is safe.
2 million syrians are living on turkish soil now. there are ½a million or more in my town alone. the local park is now known as little syria. there are some turkish towns where syrians outnumber locals by several times.
those leaving turkey are more economic migrants than refugees.

All wonderful, but that does not mean other countries should not play their part in helping these people.
Its also not up to you whether a family feels safe or where you are only going off views printed on the family.
This is why such views fall apart, you think everyone should think as you do, they do not and many people in a country adjacent to civil wars going on is not really that safe at all, especially when terrorist attacks have been increasing. Some people rightly want to get away  as far as possible from the violence and who can blame them.

If the family were safe in Turkey, why did they get in that boat?

Cuchulain wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:that family had been in turkey for some time, a safe country where the father had worked for 3 years. there was no need for them to put young kids in a rubber boat to try a treacherous sea crossing in the middle of the night. There are hundreds of young syrian kids living quite happily within spitting distance of where I live and they have been living here for many years now, quite safely.
I was renewing my residence permit the other day at a government office and there was a big line of syrians waiting to collect their monthly money that the turkish government gives them.

They are allowed to open business's and they are granted citizenship here far quicker than other nationals.

Most the syrians I have met, and I have met a lot, are decent hard working people who just want the war to end so they can go home and rebuild.

One chap I met came from Alleppo and had been bombed by Assad, the FSA and Daesh, he makes money by selling scarves and other small items along the beach, he wants to return as soon as it is safe.
2 million syrians are living on turkish soil now. there are ½a million or more in my town alone. the local park is now known as little syria. there are some turkish towns where syrians outnumber locals by several times.
those leaving turkey are more economic migrants than refugees.

All wonderful, but that does not mean other countries should not play their part in helping these people.
Its also not up to you whether a family feels safe or where you are only going off views printed on the family.
This is why such views fall apart, you think everyone should think as you do, they do not and many people in a country adjacent to civil wars going on is not really that safe at all, especially when terrorist attacks have been increasing. Some people rightly want to get away  as far as possible from the violence and who can blame them.

if they leave a same country then they cease to be refugees, they become migrants, I am amazed that someone can amass 4000euros to pay people smugglers when the average salary in turkey is under £200 a month. However he did have that money, it is a shame he could not spend a few pounds more on life jackets for his family that would have cost around £10 or so each. there is a booming trade in bodrum and the area in lifejackets these days, they are not hard to find and most shops will sell them. This is of course a tragedy for him, but not really a reason to make home office policy.

It would be far better to listen to the young syrian lad on the news saying"stop the war in syria"
the west and Muslim world could do that with a kuwait style coalition to go in and crush daesh and end this war before more babies are used for propaganda purposes.
had we done that 4 yeas ago then daesh would not have existed and thousands upon thousands might not be traipsing all over europe or be buried in the ground, dumped in the sea or rivers.

eddie wrote:If the family were safe in Turkey, why did they get in that boat?

teeth

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:


All wonderful, but that does not mean other countries should not play their part in helping these people.
Its also not up to you whether a family feels safe or where you are only going off views printed on the family.
This is why such views fall apart, you think everyone should think as you do, they do not and many people in a country adjacent to civil wars going on is not really that safe at all, especially when terrorist attacks have been increasing. Some people rightly want to get away  as far as possible from the violence and who can blame them.

if they leave a same country then they cease to be refugees, they become migrants, I am amazed that someone can amass 4000euros to pay people smugglers  when the average salary in turkey is under £200 a month. However he did have that money, it is a shame he could not spend a few pounds more on life jackets for his family that would have cost around £10 or so each. there is a booming trade in bodrum and the area in lifejackets these days, they are not hard to find and most shops will sell them. This is of course a tragedy for him, but not really a reason to make home office policy.

It would be far better to listen to the young syrian lad on the news saying"stop the war in syria"
the west and Muslim world could do that with a kuwait style coalition to go in and crush daesh and end this war before more babies are used for propaganda purposes.
had we done that 4 yeas ago then daesh would not have existed and thousands upon thousands might not be traipsing all over europe or be buried in the ground, dumped in the sea or rivers.

1) No you are in error, they are still refugees until accepted by a nation.
2) Its again not down to you decide what feels safest for the people involved, where again things are brewing up with the Kurds also, so its not exactly the advertisement of safety
3) Have been saying for ages to send boots on the ground

Cuchulain wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
if they leave a same country then they cease to be refugees, they become migrants, I am amazed that someone can amass 4000euros to pay people smugglers  when the average salary in turkey is under £200 a month. However he did have that money, it is a shame he could not spend a few pounds more on life jackets for his family that would have cost around £10 or so each. there is a booming trade in bodrum and the area in lifejackets these days, they are not hard to find and most shops will sell them. This is of course a tragedy for him, but not really a reason to make home office policy.

It would be far better to listen to the young syrian lad on the news saying"stop the war in syria"
the west and Muslim world could do that with a kuwait style coalition to go in and crush daesh and end this war before more babies are used for propaganda purposes.
had we done that 4 yeas ago then daesh would not have existed and thousands upon thousands might not be traipsing all over europe or be buried in the ground, dumped in the sea or rivers.

1) No you are in error, they are still refugees until accepted by a nation.
2) Its again not down to you decide what feels safest for the people involved, where again things are brewing up with the Kurds also, so its not exactly the advertisement of safety
3) Have been saying for ages to send boots on the ground

he had been accepted by turkey, he could even have become a turkish citizen 2 years ago. He would also have received money from the government and help with housing.
something many turkish people do not get.

His children died becasue he wanted new free teeth.
although new teeth are very cheap in turkey
he was an economic migrant

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:


1) No you are in error, they are still refugees until accepted by a nation.
2) Its again not down to you decide what feels safest for the people involved, where again things are brewing up with the Kurds also, so its not exactly the advertisement of safety
3) Have been saying for ages to send boots on the ground

he had been accepted by turkey, he could even have become a turkish citizen 2 years ago. He would also have received money from the government and help with housing.
something many turkish people do not get.

His children died becasue he wanted new free teeth.
although new teeth are very cheap in turkey
he was an economic migrant

1) So you claim, I read conflicting accounts on this, which is still irrelevant on people feeling safe.
The fact is the comments made in this article were poor to say the least of which now this father has to live with the consequences of..
2) New teeth and I thought this was a serious discussion? So you make poor assumptions
3) He was a refugee, until you prove otherwise with corroborating sources, not hearsay

Actually he was trying to get to Canada where his family are.  After everything they had been through I expect family were very important.

I have read and it has just been confirmed in a report on sky news that Kurdish Syrians  (which this family were) are not treated well in Turkey and therefore are desperate to leave.  The money they had to pay the smugglers, was money his sister had sent over from Canada, 1,000 at a time via Western Union. She had failed to get them to Canada and therefore she sent the money to pay the smugglers instead, to get them out of Turkey and over to Kos , where they could register as refugees.

there are millions of kurds in southern turkey, who manage to live just fine. they are not all in the PKK

Christie wrote:I have read and it has just been confirmed in a report on sky news that Kurdish Syrians  (which this family were) are not treated well in Turkey and therefore are desperate to leave.  The money they had to pay the smugglers, was money his sister had sent over from Canada, 1,000 at a time via Western Union. She had failed to get them to Canada and therefore she sent the money to pay the smugglers instead, to get them out of Turkey and over to Kos , where they could register as refugees.

Well, as Turkey is bombing the Kurds, you can understand why they would not feel safe.

Thanks for the info.

Christie wrote:I have read and it has just been confirmed in a report on sky news that Kurdish Syrians  (which this family were) are not treated well in Turkey and therefore are desperate to leave.  The money they had to pay the smugglers, was money his sister had sent over from Canada, 1,000 at a time via Western Union. She had failed to get them to Canada and therefore she sent the money to pay the smugglers instead, to get them out of Turkey and over to Kos , where they could register as refugees.

then his sister bears some blame for their deaths. he could have gone north and avoided the sea altogether.

The Devil, You Know wrote:there are thousands of kurds in southern turkey, who manage to live just fine. they are not all in the PKK

Do they live just fine?
That is a very big assumption where they have been mistreated for years. Again you make the bases for how a person should feel, with you never having even faced such discrimination. Try walking in their shoes for a change.

What a fucking vile thing to say when she was thousands on miles away, not knowing wha to do for the best and has lost 3 of her family.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:I have read and it has just been confirmed in a report on sky news that Kurdish Syrians  (which this family were) are not treated well in Turkey and therefore are desperate to leave.  The money they had to pay the smugglers, was money his sister had sent over from Canada, 1,000 at a time via Western Union. She had failed to get them to Canada and therefore she sent the money to pay the smugglers instead, to get them out of Turkey and over to Kos , where they could register as refugees.

then his sister bears some blame for their deaths. he could have gone north and avoided the sea altogether.

If ISIS gets near you, will you be to blame for anything that happens to your children?

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:I have read and it has just been confirmed in a report on sky news that Kurdish Syrians  (which this family were) are not treated well in Turkey and therefore are desperate to leave.  The money they had to pay the smugglers, was money his sister had sent over from Canada, 1,000 at a time via Western Union. She had failed to get them to Canada and therefore she sent the money to pay the smugglers instead, to get them out of Turkey and over to Kos , where they could register as refugees.

then his sister bears some blame for their deaths. he could have gone north and avoided the sea altogether.

Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

Cuchulain wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:there are thousands of kurds in southern turkey, who manage to live just fine. they are not all in the PKK

Do they live just fine?
That is a very big assumption where they have been mistreated for years. Again you make the bases for who a person should feel, with you never having even faced such discrimination. Try walking in their shoes for a change.

well the thousands I have seen here seem to do OK. they enjoy a good riot every week or so and a lot enjoy a five finger discount. But not all are criminals, most work the fields and supply the restaurants with waiters. as large numbers of them leave school ASAP to help support the family. the further east you go the more volatile it gets though.

Cuchulain wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
then his sister bears some blame for their deaths. he could have gone north and avoided the sea altogether.

Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

with 4000 euro's in his pocket he could have got a train and his family would not be dead

The Devil, You Know wrote:there are millions of kurds in southern turkey, who manage to live just fine. they are not all in the PKK

Not in the report I have just seen. They are given little food and are often detained by the police for no reason at all. Many of them in the report were on the beach where the little boy was found. stating this very fact, of how mistreated they were in Turkey and would rather risk dying in a boat over to Kos, rather than staying in Turkey. The only thing stopping them from leaving was the lack of money to pay the smugglers.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:


Do they live just fine?
That is a very big assumption where they have been mistreated for years. Again you make the bases for who a person should feel, with you never having even faced such discrimination. Try walking in their shoes for a change.

well the thousands I have seen here seem to do OK. they enjoy a good riot every week or so and a lot enjoy a five finger discount. But not all are criminals, most work the fields and supply the restaurants with waiters. as large numbers of them leave school ASAP to help support the family. the further east you go the more volatile it gets though.

Seem to be okay?
That is not a very reassuring answer is it?
So if there is riots, then clearly your claim that they do okay is false, as clearly there is many grievances for such riots to escalate. I mean it might help if you had spoken to at least 10, but to say, they SEEM to do okay, is basically you admitting you have not a clue how they feel.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:



Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

with 4000 euro's in his pocket he could have got a train and his family would not be dead

How could he, when he has to have the relevant documents to leave Turkey, which they won't give him.That is why these people are taking desperate measures.

Saw this for real in Vietnam, American Helicopter strafed VC sampan on river then machine gunned survivers in the water.We all cheered!

Cuchulain wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
then his sister bears some blame for their deaths. he could have gone north and avoided the sea altogether.

Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

I didnt realise bulgaria and the balkans were still in the russian sphere of influence. Its more or less the same distance as going via kos, but you dont need to kill your family in the sea

The facts are clear for all to see... the parents caused the boys death.


I agree with 'the devil you know' completely!!!


The parents are totally to blame for this poor child's needless death... they should be facing criminal charges!!!

Christie wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
with 4000 euro's in his pocket he could have got a train and his family would not be dead

How could he, when he has to have the relevant documents to leave Turkey, which they won't give him.That is why these people are taking desperate measures.

he could have become a turkish citizen, bir Dakika Bey is offering it really quickly to syrians hoping they will vote to keep him in power

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:



Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

I didnt realise bulgaria and the balkans were still in the russian sphere of influence. Its more or less the same distance as going via kos, but you dont need to kill your family in the sea

DOH that is not going north is it from Turkey, if you go via Bulgaria? You said go North. So your point is daft, they have to be allowed to leave the point you miss. So you have got all your geography mixed up and as Christie has rightly pointed out, they need this money just to get them out of Turkey

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:

How could he, when he has to have the relevant documents to leave Turkey, which they won't give him.That is why these people are taking desperate measures.

he could have become a turkish citizen, bir Dakika Bey is offering it really quickly to syrians hoping they will vote to keep him in power

Well as has been pointed out already, he and other Kurds were being mistreated. So would you stay in a country where you are being mistreated?

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:



Yeah because walking thousands of miles with children and next to no food is a doodle Dean I guess to you. Not only that he would have to pass Russia where Assad is allied to. No kurd in their right mind would go that way unless Putin made some reassurances.

I didnt realise bulgaria and the balkans were still in the russian sphere of influence. Its more or less the same distance as going via kos, but you dont need to kill your family in the sea

You obviously haven't read how Syrian refugees are treated in Bulgaria.  You are truly disgusting.

Tommy Monk wrote:The facts are clear for all to see... the parents caused the boys death.


I agree with 'the devil you know' completely!!!


The parents are totally to blame for this poor child's needless death... they should be facing criminal charges!!!

there is a roaring trade in life jackets in the area as turkish merchants are not slow at making a bob or two and quick to spot an opportunity. they start from as little as £10, you can get child ones. No sane person takes babies out into the open sea in the middle of the night in an overcrowded rubber boat.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:

How could he, when he has to have the relevant documents to leave Turkey, which they won't give him.That is why these people are taking desperate measures.

he could have become a turkish citizen, bir Dakika Bey is offering it really quickly to syrians hoping they will vote to keep him in power

But to Kurdish Syrians? I doubt it. These people want out of Turkey because they are made to not feel welcome or safe.

Each day we read about the inhumane crimes committed in Syria, and migrants drowning in the Aegean and Mediterranean on their way to Europe. To understand this on going humanitarian crisis, we must also pay attention to what is going in Turkey and the fate of Syrian nationals living t/here. There is an ever-increasing anxiety and uncertainty felt by both Syrian and Turkish communities over the future of Syrian nationals’ official status, living conditions, and basic services provided to Syrian nationals around the country in general. Syrian nationals have become as regular of a conversation topic as the summer heat these days in Turkey. Taxi drives, storeowners, students, all (mistakenly) talk about “the Syrians” as a uniform group; there are many different groups of Syrian national living in Turkey. Different ethnic, financial, educational backgrounds are all bundled together in these everyday conversations. Yet, the reality is, as always, much more complex. Some Syrians have an easy life in Turkey, opening up businesses, integrating into the social fabric of the country seamlessly. But they are a minority; they are the “success” story. Many more are barely surviving in bus terminals, city parks, or live in crammed apartment units in suburban government housing projects outside big cities like Ankara, or Istanbul.
Currently, Syrians living in Turkey are considered to be “guests” with temporary protection status provided by the Turkish government, but they are not officially considered to be refugees or asylum seekers by the Turkish authorities due to Turkey’s ‘geographical limitation’ to the Geneva Convention. As such, they cannot apply for asylum or refugee status in Turkey, for Turkey. While Syrian nationals can stay in Turkey for the time being and receive “temporary protection,” their status in Turkey is not protected under the Geneva Convention. The geographical exception clause makes it impossible for people coming from anywhere but the West of Turkey to apply for asylum in Turkey. While they can apply for and receive UNHCR status in Turkey, UNHCR’s implementation partner in Turkey is extremely overburdened at the moment and according to them it can take up to 7 to 10 years for a Syrian to even get an appointment with the UNHCR in Turkey for the refugee-status process to even begin. On the other side of the coin, with the Turkish economy looking not-so-bright as it did five years ago, with the Turkish lira plummeting, and the political situation in the country looking rather unstable, the integration of these “guests” into the Turkish social welfare, health, and education systems is starting to look to be a massive challenge for the Turkish government in the decades to come.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the number of Syrian nationals is proving to be too high for Turkey to manage. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), since the start of the Syrian Civil War in early 2011, the number of Syrians fleeing the country has surpassed four million, with another five and a half million being displaced internally within Syria. Almost half of the Syrians forced to live outside of Syria now live in Turkey, either waiting to make their way elsewhere or waiting for the end of the conflict in order to return back to their homes. With no end in sight for the conflict, given the complicated nature of the civil war and the rise of the so-called Islamic State, the situation of Syrian forced migrants living in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and other regional countries is no longer a temporary situation; the Syrian crises is a long term issue with permanent implications for all parties involved.
Turkey is facing a humanitarian crisis in its Southeastern border, with the official statistics now reporting up to 1.8 million Syrian citizens living in Turkey. The unofficial number, however, is much higher; reaching more than two million with the addition of the undocumented individuals. And this is only the Syrians living in the region, if you factor in the number of Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans, Yemenis, among other nationals fleeing conflict in their home countries, the number of forced migrants living in Turkey increases significantly.
The plight of the Syrian nationals living is everywhere around Turkey. News stories from Western Turkey, near the Aegean, report that lifejacket sales have hit an all time high as Syrians attempting to cross to Greek islands rely on them to survive; everyday hundreds if not thousands of irregular migrants try to cross the Aegean into Greece. Police and gendarmerie stop vehicles driving on coastal roads and check for citizenship documents to in order to “prevent human smuggling.” Both Turkish and Syrian nationals are growing more skeptical and unsure about one another, especially since the recent Islamic State bombing in Suruc, Gaziantep. In Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, as well as many other Turkish cities, Syrians are living outside the Turkish government-run camps and on the streets, becoming increasingly jaded and vulnerable to everyday racism and exclusion from social life.
Currently, Syrian nationals live under a temporary protection regime in Turkey, designed to regulate their legal status outside of the Geneva Convention. In the short term, Turkish government provides a great deal of services to most Syrian nationals including shelter, food, healthcare, and education. While, the temporary protection status provides 1) an open door policy for Syrians, 2) ensures that there will be no forced returns to Syria in line with the non-refoulement principle, and 3) gives them the right to have an unlimited duration of stay in Turkey, the temporary protection status policy is a short-term stop-gap. It is not a long-term policy such as the UNHRC refugee status regime. The increasing number of Syrian nationals living in Turkey, when combined with the long-term implications of the Syrian Civil War on the region, will eventually have serious consequences for Turkish political institutions.
We can see two such areas of concern emerging already. First, is the employment status of Syrians, the temporary protection status does not give Syrian a right to employment. Lack of legal avenues for employment results in Syrians being employed in precarious settings such under-the-table employment for incredibly low wages and poor health and safety standards. Secondly, the already overburdened and under-funded Turkish health care system is having a hard time absorbing the number of non-citizens without proper insurance policies. Furthermore, if and when Syrians have access to these services, the fact that “their” services are being offered to Syrian nationals is irritating local populations. These issues are only just emerging, and it has only been four and a half years since the Syrian Civil War started. The increasing prospect of Turkish army getting directly involved in the conflict is turning Turkish people even more jaded and sceptical of the Syrian nationals living in Turkey.
So we can see why Syrians might want to leave Turkey and seek a better life in Europe, or elsewhere. For one thing, migration/development nexus research demonstrates that people tend to move to seek better lives in developed countries. When it comes to forced migration, such as in the case of the Syrians, people have no choice but to move. But currently, Syrians are stuck in countries neighbouring Syria, with developed countries not doing much, if at all, to help to them relocate and allow them to start a better life. Irregular migrants to do not choose to migrate irregularly, through smuggling networks; by risking their lives in open seas; by being at the whim of authorities and smugglers. They do so because they are often left without a legal option to seek asylum and safety.
Currently, European Union countries are using various practices, policies, and technologies to prevent asylum seekers and refugees from making claims on European territories. The EU’s approach corresponds with global trends in migration management implemented by Australia, Canada, UK, and the United States among others. Territorial access matters to asylum applications. An applicant must be physically in the territory of the country they are claiming asylum in. An embassy, in this case, does not count as a national territory. Without that physical access, there can be no asylum application. This system creates “good” refugees who sit and wait in UNHCR camps to be sponsored, while “bad” asylum-seekers that migrate irregularly and “jump-the-queue.” However, when anyone of the approximately 2 million Syrian nationals living in Turkey looking at the hard facts to assess their chances of UNHCR relocation, will figure out that since the start of the conflict, US only sponsored 1000 Syrians, UK 500, Canada 1300 (with most of these refugees being sponsored privately by family members), Kurdi family applied through this private sponsorship programme for Canada, and was refused. A Syrian national living in Turkey, does not risk his/her life because they simply want to cheat the system, or “jump-the-queue.” The queue, in fact, does not really exist, and where they are right now, they cannot work legally. The UNHCR’s implementing partner on the ground in Turkey, the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants is overburdened. They do not posses the institutional capacity at the moment to process and register 2 million individuals. The waiting time for even getting an appointment for registration is measured in years at this point. With no real stable work opportunities, these individual can survive in Turkey, but they can’t live and prosper.
In the past two week, I had two separate encounters with Syrian nationals in Turkey. First one was during a short visit to Edremit, a coastal town in North Western Turkey. In and around Edremit, Syrians wait to be smuggled into the Greek Island of Lesvos on their way to the European Union. They pay a hefty sum to be smuggled into Greece, which they cannot easily afford. During the day, they either hide in the forests, away from the gendarmerie and the police, or work illegally in the fields for very little pay. Most of them are legally entitled to be in Turkey, but cannot exit Turkey legally without a proper visa issued to their now expired Syrian passports; this is an after effect of the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement. Without such a visa, Turkey refuses to issue them with an exit visa.
The EU and Turkey signed a readmission agreement back in 2013 that stipulates that irregular migrants that cross into EU territory via Turkey can be deported back to Turkey if their asylum application is rejected. FRONTEX, the EU’s external border security agency, is collaborating with national coast guards, police forces, and border guards to prevent irregular migrants from entering in the first place, but if they do enter the readmission agreement is there to ensure their deportation back to Turkey, at the expense of Turkish taxpayers. To prevent this Turkey does not allow Syrians to leave Turkey for Europe through regular means.
This is the catch-22 faced by Syrian nationals living in Turkey. They can stay in Turkey permanently, but for the time being but for the most part they cannot work legally, they cannot migrate elsewhere through regular means because they do not possess a Syrian passport and the backlog in the UNHCR registration system offers no realistic prospect. This takes me to the second encounter. Only few days ago, prior to boarding a flight to Belgrade in Istanbul, my partner and I witnessed a situation that is neither exceptional, nor uncommon for Syrian-born people trying to travel out of the Istanbul Ataturk Airport. In this case, a Syrian-born Turkish citizen a valid passport, and her two children, was not given the right to board the plane to Belgrade. The airport employee’s “reason” for this was that although she was a Turkish citizen with a valid passport, but her passport was expiring in less than 6 months and that she was a Syrian born Turkish citizen. He argued that, Serbian authorities would not have granted her visa-waiver status granted to Turkish citizens travelling to Serbia without that 6 months on her passport, even though they would have given that exception to “normal” Turkish citizens. He also suggested that by letting her board the plane, the employee would risk receiving a personal fine of 5000 euros by the airline. To be able to travel to Belgrade, she would have had either have a new Turkish passport, or to go to a Serbian consulate in Turkey and receive a visa on her no-longer valid Syrian passport, and then travel to Serbia with that passport. So even though she was a Turkish citizen, the fact that she was born in Syria made her a persona-non-grata for Serbian authorities. This is the case for most, if not all, European states at the moment. The current visa regime is taxing at best of times for citizens of Turkey, however, the current situation makes it nearly, if not absolutely, impossible for Syrians to get a visa and travel to Europe out of the fear that they would seek asylum upon arrival.
The status of Syrians living in Turkey is precarious at best. While on the short term, they are provided with necessary services, they are unable to work legally. Turkish authorities is doing a lot to provide for the Syrians, but there are structural issues that cannot be addressed by Turkey alone. While Syrians can live in Turkey, they cannot leave. While they can have certain legal protections under the temporary protection status, they have to wait “in line” for years on end to be even considered for a line in the UNHCR relocation “pool.” Turks and Syrians are developing and antagonistic relationship towards one another. From the taxi drivers in Edremit, to airport personnel in Istanbul, everyday Turkish citizens are enacting and internalizing the border in their own ways by regulating, reporting, suspecting the Syrian mobilities. European (b)ordering practices are becoming increasingly internal to Turkish citizens. While the Readmission Agreement was primarily introduced to prevent irregular migration through Turkey, it was presented to the domestic constituency in Turkey as a road map for visa-free travel to Europe. So in other words, while not discussed openly, the plight of Syrians living in Turkey has become a stake in the Turkish government’s bargaining position for visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the EU. This is the current status of Syrian nationals living in Turkey.

http://thedisorderofthings.com/2015/09/03/the-status-of-syrian-nationals-residing-in-turkey/

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:The facts are clear for all to see... the parents caused the boys death.


I agree with 'the devil you know' completely!!!


The parents are totally to blame for this poor child's needless death... they should be facing criminal charges!!!

there is a roaring trade in life jackets in the area as turkish merchants are not slow at making a bob or two and quick to spot an opportunity. they start from as little as £10, you can get child ones. No sane person takes babies out into the open sea in the middle of the night in an overcrowded rubber boat.

They did buy life jackets, only thing was, they were sold fake ones and of no good when the boat capsized.

sassy wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
I didnt realise bulgaria and the balkans were still in the russian sphere of influence. Its more or less the same distance as going via kos, but you dont need to kill your family in the sea

You obviously haven't read how Syrian refugees are treated in Bulgaria.  You are truly disgusting.

hmmm badly treated, dead? seems you prefer dead, but then you are quite keen on shots of dead babies to further your cause aren't you

Christie wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
there is a roaring trade in life jackets in the area as turkish merchants are not slow at making a bob or two and quick to spot an opportunity. they start from as little as £10, you can get child ones. No sane person takes babies out into the open sea in the middle of the night in an overcrowded rubber boat.

They did buy life jackets, only thing was, they were sold fake ones and of no good when the boat capsized.

so those kiddies took off their life jackets before being swept to shore? they were not wearing them in the pictures.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

sassy wrote:

You obviously haven't read how Syrian refugees are treated in Bulgaria.  You are truly disgusting.

hmmm badly treated, dead? seems you prefer dead, but then you are quite keen on shots of dead babies to further your cause aren't you

My cause?  My cause is to have people treated humanely and not pass judgement of people who have to make terrible decisions.

Lets not let this become personal, please?
Its an emotive subject, but should not be a reason to inflame old wars.

Most of them are legally entitled to be in Turkey, but cannot exit Turkey legally without a proper visa issued to their now expired Syrian passports; this is an after effect of the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement. Without such a visa, Turkey refuses to issue them with an exit visa.

That's exactly what I was meaning when I said they need the relevant documents. Thanks sassy.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:

They did buy life jackets, only thing was, they were sold fake ones and of no good when the boat capsized.

so those kiddies took off their life jackets before being swept to shore? they were not wearing them in the pictures.

Perhaps the life jackets came loose when they fell into the water? They were fake after all and of poor quality.

sassy wrote:Each day we read about the inhumane crimes committed in Syria, and migrants drowning in the Aegean and Mediterranean on their way to Europe. To understand this on going humanitarian crisis, we must also pay attention to what is going in Turkey and the fate of Syrian nationals living t/here. There is an ever-increasing anxiety and uncertainty felt by both Syrian and Turkish communities over the future of Syrian nationals’ official status, living conditions, and basic services provided to Syrian nationals around the country in general. Syrian nationals have become as regular of a conversation topic as the summer heat these days in Turkey. Taxi drives, storeowners, students, all (mistakenly) talk about “the Syrians” as a uniform group; there are many different groups of Syrian national living in Turkey. Different ethnic, financial, educational backgrounds are all bundled together in these everyday conversations. Yet, the reality is, as always, much more complex. Some Syrians have an easy life in Turkey, opening up businesses, integrating into the social fabric of the country seamlessly. But they are a minority; they are the “success” story. Many more are barely surviving in bus terminals, city parks, or live in crammed apartment units in suburban government housing projects outside big cities like Ankara, or Istanbul.
Currently, Syrians living in Turkey are considered to be “guests” with temporary protection status provided by the Turkish government, but they are not officially considered to be refugees or asylum seekers by the Turkish authorities due to Turkey’s ‘geographical limitation’ to the Geneva Convention. As such, they cannot apply for asylum or refugee status in Turkey, for Turkey. While Syrian nationals can stay in Turkey for the time being and receive “temporary protection,” their status in Turkey is not protected under the Geneva Convention. The geographical exception clause makes it impossible for people coming from anywhere but the West of Turkey to apply for asylum in Turkey. While they can apply for and receive UNHCR status in Turkey, UNHCR’s implementation partner in Turkey is extremely overburdened at the moment and according to them it can take up to 7 to 10 years for a Syrian to even get an appointment with the UNHCR in Turkey for the refugee-status process to even begin. On the other side of the coin, with the Turkish economy looking not-so-bright as it did five years ago, with the Turkish lira plummeting, and the political situation in the country looking rather unstable, the integration of these “guests” into the Turkish social welfare, health, and education systems is starting to look to be a massive challenge for the Turkish government in the decades to come.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the number of Syrian nationals is proving to be too high for Turkey to manage. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), since the start of the Syrian Civil War in early 2011, the number of Syrians fleeing the country has surpassed four million, with another five and a half million being displaced internally within Syria. Almost half of the Syrians forced to live outside of Syria now live in Turkey, either waiting to make their way elsewhere or waiting for the end of the conflict in order to return back to their homes. With no end in sight for the conflict, given the complicated nature of the civil war and the rise of the so-called Islamic State, the situation of Syrian forced migrants living in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and other regional countries is no longer a temporary situation; the Syrian crises is a long term issue with permanent implications for all parties involved.
Turkey is facing a humanitarian crisis in its Southeastern border, with the official statistics now reporting up to 1.8 million Syrian citizens living in Turkey. The unofficial number, however, is much higher; reaching more than two million with the addition of the undocumented individuals. And this is only the Syrians living in the region, if you factor in the number of Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans, Yemenis, among other nationals fleeing conflict in their home countries, the number of forced migrants living in Turkey increases significantly.
The plight of the Syrian nationals living is everywhere around Turkey. News stories from Western Turkey, near the Aegean, report that lifejacket sales have hit an all time high as Syrians attempting to cross to Greek islands rely on them to survive; everyday hundreds if not thousands of irregular migrants try to cross the Aegean into Greece. Police and gendarmerie stop vehicles driving on coastal roads and check for citizenship documents to in order to “prevent human smuggling.” Both Turkish and Syrian nationals are growing more skeptical and unsure about one another, especially since the recent Islamic State bombing in Suruc, Gaziantep. In Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, as well as many other Turkish cities, Syrians are living outside the Turkish government-run camps and on the streets, becoming increasingly jaded and vulnerable to everyday racism and exclusion from social life.
Currently, Syrian nationals live under a temporary protection regime in Turkey, designed to regulate their legal status outside of the Geneva Convention. In the short term, Turkish government provides a great deal of services to most Syrian nationals including shelter, food, healthcare, and education. While, the temporary protection status provides 1) an open door policy for Syrians, 2) ensures that there will be no forced returns to Syria in line with the non-refoulement principle, and 3) gives them the right to have an unlimited duration of stay in Turkey, the temporary protection status policy is a short-term stop-gap. It is not a long-term policy such as the UNHRC refugee status regime. The increasing number of Syrian nationals living in Turkey, when combined with the long-term implications of the Syrian Civil War on the region, will eventually have serious consequences for Turkish political institutions.
We can see two such areas of concern emerging already. First, is the employment status of Syrians, the temporary protection status does not give Syrian a right to employment. Lack of legal avenues for employment results in Syrians being employed in precarious settings such under-the-table employment for incredibly low wages and poor health and safety standards. Secondly, the already overburdened and under-funded Turkish health care system is having a hard time absorbing the number of non-citizens without proper insurance policies. Furthermore, if and when Syrians have access to these services, the fact that “their” services are being offered to Syrian nationals is irritating local populations. These issues are only just emerging, and it has only been four and a half years since the Syrian Civil War started. The increasing prospect of Turkish army getting directly involved in the conflict is turning Turkish people even more jaded and sceptical of the Syrian nationals living in Turkey.
So we can see why Syrians might want to leave Turkey and seek a better life in Europe, or elsewhere. For one thing, migration/development nexus research demonstrates that people tend to move to seek better lives in developed countries. When it comes to forced migration, such as in the case of the Syrians, people have no choice but to move. But currently, Syrians are stuck in countries neighbouring Syria, with developed countries not doing much, if at all, to help to them relocate and allow them to start a better life. Irregular migrants to do not choose to migrate irregularly, through smuggling networks; by risking their lives in open seas; by being at the whim of authorities and smugglers. They do so because they are often left without a legal option to seek asylum and safety.
Currently, European Union countries are using various practices, policies, and technologies to prevent asylum seekers and refugees from making claims on European territories. The EU’s approach corresponds with global trends in migration management implemented by Australia, Canada, UK, and the United States among others. Territorial access matters to asylum applications. An applicant must be physically in the territory of the country they are claiming asylum in. An embassy, in this case, does not count as a national territory. Without that physical access, there can be no asylum application. This system creates “good” refugees who sit and wait in UNHCR camps to be sponsored, while “bad” asylum-seekers that migrate irregularly and “jump-the-queue.” However, when anyone of the approximately 2 million Syrian nationals living in Turkey looking at the hard facts to assess their chances of UNHCR relocation, will figure out that since the start of the conflict, US only sponsored 1000 Syrians, UK 500, Canada 1300 (with most of these refugees being sponsored privately by family members), Kurdi family applied through this private sponsorship programme for Canada, and was refused. A Syrian national living in Turkey, does not risk his/her life because they simply want to cheat the system, or “jump-the-queue.” The queue, in fact, does not really exist, and where they are right now, they cannot work legally. The UNHCR’s implementing partner on the ground in Turkey, the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants is overburdened. They do not posses the institutional capacity at the moment to process and register 2 million individuals. The waiting time for even getting an appointment for registration is measured in years at this point. With no real stable work opportunities, these individual can survive in Turkey, but they can’t live and prosper.
In the past two week, I had two separate encounters with Syrian nationals in Turkey. First one was during a short visit to Edremit, a coastal town in North Western Turkey. In and around Edremit, Syrians wait to be smuggled into the Greek Island of Lesvos on their way to the European Union. They pay a hefty sum to be smuggled into Greece, which they cannot easily afford. During the day, they either hide in the forests, away from the gendarmerie and the police, or work illegally in the fields for very little pay. Most of them are legally entitled to be in Turkey, but cannot exit Turkey legally without a proper visa issued to their now expired Syrian passports; this is an after effect of the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement. Without such a visa, Turkey refuses to issue them with an exit visa.
The EU and Turkey signed a readmission agreement back in 2013 that stipulates that irregular migrants that cross into EU territory via Turkey can be deported back to Turkey if their asylum application is rejected. FRONTEX, the EU’s external border security agency, is collaborating with national coast guards, police forces, and border guards to prevent irregular migrants from entering in the first place, but if they do enter the readmission agreement is there to ensure their deportation back to Turkey, at the expense of Turkish taxpayers. To prevent this Turkey does not allow Syrians to leave Turkey for Europe through regular means.
This is the catch-22 faced by Syrian nationals living in Turkey. They can stay in Turkey permanently, but for the time being but for the most part they cannot work legally, they cannot migrate elsewhere through regular means because they do not possess a Syrian passport and the backlog in the UNHCR registration system offers no realistic prospect. This takes me to the second encounter. Only few days ago, prior to boarding a flight to Belgrade in Istanbul, my partner and I witnessed a situation that is neither exceptional, nor uncommon for Syrian-born people trying to travel out of the Istanbul Ataturk Airport. In this case, a Syrian-born Turkish citizen a valid passport, and her two children, was not given the right to board the plane to Belgrade. The airport employee’s “reason” for this was that although she was a Turkish citizen with a valid passport, but her passport was expiring in less than 6 months and that she was a Syrian born Turkish citizen. He argued that, Serbian authorities would not have granted her visa-waiver status granted to Turkish citizens travelling to Serbia without that 6 months on her passport, even though they would have given that exception to “normal” Turkish citizens. He also suggested that by letting her board the plane, the employee would risk receiving a personal fine of 5000 euros by the airline. To be able to travel to Belgrade, she would have had either have a new Turkish passport, or to go to a Serbian consulate in Turkey and receive a visa on her no-longer valid Syrian passport, and then travel to Serbia with that passport. So even though she was a Turkish citizen, the fact that she was born in Syria made her a persona-non-grata for Serbian authorities. This is the case for most, if not all, European states at the moment. The current visa regime is taxing at best of times for citizens of Turkey, however, the current situation makes it nearly, if not absolutely, impossible for Syrians to get a visa and travel to Europe out of the fear that they would seek asylum upon arrival.
The status of Syrians living in Turkey is precarious at best. While on the short term, they are provided with necessary services, they are unable to work legally. Turkish authorities is doing a lot to provide for the Syrians, but there are structural issues that cannot be addressed by Turkey alone. While Syrians can live in Turkey, they cannot leave. While they can have certain legal protections under the temporary protection status, they have to wait “in line” for years on end to be even considered for a line in the UNHCR relocation “pool.” Turks and Syrians are developing and antagonistic relationship towards one another. From the taxi drivers in Edremit, to airport personnel in Istanbul, everyday Turkish citizens are enacting and internalizing the border in their own ways by regulating, reporting, suspecting the Syrian mobilities. European (b)ordering practices are becoming increasingly internal to Turkish citizens. While the Readmission Agreement was primarily introduced to prevent irregular migration through Turkey, it was presented to the domestic constituency in Turkey as a road map for visa-free travel to Europe. So in other words, while not discussed openly, the plight of Syrians living in Turkey has become a stake in the Turkish government’s bargaining position for visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the EU. This is the current status of Syrian nationals living in Turkey.

http://thedisorderofthings.com/2015/09/03/the-status-of-syrian-nationals-residing-in-turkey/

this is why those kiddies and thousands of others like them died

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/09/02/syrian-civil-war-syrian-boy-turkish-beach/?utm_campaign=wp-to-twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

the liberal elite turned their back on syria 4 years ago. People exactly like you who are bleating the loudest that something must be done wanted nothing to do with the slaughter in syria.
the cause of this slaughter is Assad ad daesh and the numerous Muslim factions that are happy to kill and maim their way across the region becasue of a book. Finish daesh and remove Assad and those people will not need to flee, but I guess that would not enable you to wring your hands enough and feel all worthy would it. your sort make me sick

Christie wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
so those kiddies took off their life jackets before being swept to shore? they were not wearing them in the pictures.

Perhaps the life jackets came loose when they fell into the water? They were fake after all and of poor quality.

they are not expensive to buy good quality ones if they were bought at all

The Devil, You Know wrote:

sassy wrote:Each day we read about the inhumane crimes committed in Syria, and migrants drowning in the Aegean and Mediterranean on their way to Europe. To understand this on going humanitarian crisis, we must also pay attention to what is going in Turkey and the fate of Syrian nationals living t/here. There is an ever-increasing anxiety and uncertainty felt by both Syrian and Turkish communities over the future of Syrian nationals’ official status, living conditions, and basic services provided to Syrian nationals around the country in general. Syrian nationals have become as regular of a conversation topic as the summer heat these days in Turkey. Taxi drives, storeowners, students, all (mistakenly) talk about “the Syrians” as a uniform group; there are many different groups of Syrian national living in Turkey. Different ethnic, financial, educational backgrounds are all bundled together in these everyday conversations. Yet, the reality is, as always, much more complex. Some Syrians have an easy life in Turkey, opening up businesses, integrating into the social fabric of the country seamlessly. But they are a minority; they are the “success” story. Many more are barely surviving in bus terminals, city parks, or live in crammed apartment units in suburban government housing projects outside big cities like Ankara, or Istanbul.
Currently, Syrians living in Turkey are considered to be “guests” with temporary protection status provided by the Turkish government, but they are not officially considered to be refugees or asylum seekers by the Turkish authorities due to Turkey’s ‘geographical limitation’ to the Geneva Convention. As such, they cannot apply for asylum or refugee status in Turkey, for Turkey. While Syrian nationals can stay in Turkey for the time being and receive “temporary protection,” their status in Turkey is not protected under the Geneva Convention. The geographical exception clause makes it impossible for people coming from anywhere but the West of Turkey to apply for asylum in Turkey. While they can apply for and receive UNHCR status in Turkey, UNHCR’s implementation partner in Turkey is extremely overburdened at the moment and according to them it can take up to 7 to 10 years for a Syrian to even get an appointment with the UNHCR in Turkey for the refugee-status process to even begin. On the other side of the coin, with the Turkish economy looking not-so-bright as it did five years ago, with the Turkish lira plummeting, and the political situation in the country looking rather unstable, the integration of these “guests” into the Turkish social welfare, health, and education systems is starting to look to be a massive challenge for the Turkish government in the decades to come.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the number of Syrian nationals is proving to be too high for Turkey to manage. According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), since the start of the Syrian Civil War in early 2011, the number of Syrians fleeing the country has surpassed four million, with another five and a half million being displaced internally within Syria. Almost half of the Syrians forced to live outside of Syria now live in Turkey, either waiting to make their way elsewhere or waiting for the end of the conflict in order to return back to their homes. With no end in sight for the conflict, given the complicated nature of the civil war and the rise of the so-called Islamic State, the situation of Syrian forced migrants living in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and other regional countries is no longer a temporary situation; the Syrian crises is a long term issue with permanent implications for all parties involved.
Turkey is facing a humanitarian crisis in its Southeastern border, with the official statistics now reporting up to 1.8 million Syrian citizens living in Turkey. The unofficial number, however, is much higher; reaching more than two million with the addition of the undocumented individuals. And this is only the Syrians living in the region, if you factor in the number of Iraqis, Iranians, Afghans, Yemenis, among other nationals fleeing conflict in their home countries, the number of forced migrants living in Turkey increases significantly.
The plight of the Syrian nationals living is everywhere around Turkey. News stories from Western Turkey, near the Aegean, report that lifejacket sales have hit an all time high as Syrians attempting to cross to Greek islands rely on them to survive; everyday hundreds if not thousands of irregular migrants try to cross the Aegean into Greece. Police and gendarmerie stop vehicles driving on coastal roads and check for citizenship documents to in order to “prevent human smuggling.” Both Turkish and Syrian nationals are growing more skeptical and unsure about one another, especially since the recent Islamic State bombing in Suruc, Gaziantep. In Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, as well as many other Turkish cities, Syrians are living outside the Turkish government-run camps and on the streets, becoming increasingly jaded and vulnerable to everyday racism and exclusion from social life.
Currently, Syrian nationals live under a temporary protection regime in Turkey, designed to regulate their legal status outside of the Geneva Convention. In the short term, Turkish government provides a great deal of services to most Syrian nationals including shelter, food, healthcare, and education. While, the temporary protection status provides 1) an open door policy for Syrians, 2) ensures that there will be no forced returns to Syria in line with the non-refoulement principle, and 3) gives them the right to have an unlimited duration of stay in Turkey, the temporary protection status policy is a short-term stop-gap. It is not a long-term policy such as the UNHRC refugee status regime. The increasing number of Syrian nationals living in Turkey, when combined with the long-term implications of the Syrian Civil War on the region, will eventually have serious consequences for Turkish political institutions.
We can see two such areas of concern emerging already. First, is the employment status of Syrians, the temporary protection status does not give Syrian a right to employment. Lack of legal avenues for employment results in Syrians being employed in precarious settings such under-the-table employment for incredibly low wages and poor health and safety standards. Secondly, the already overburdened and under-funded Turkish health care system is having a hard time absorbing the number of non-citizens without proper insurance policies. Furthermore, if and when Syrians have access to these services, the fact that “their” services are being offered to Syrian nationals is irritating local populations. These issues are only just emerging, and it has only been four and a half years since the Syrian Civil War started. The increasing prospect of Turkish army getting directly involved in the conflict is turning Turkish people even more jaded and sceptical of the Syrian nationals living in Turkey.
So we can see why Syrians might want to leave Turkey and seek a better life in Europe, or elsewhere. For one thing, migration/development nexus research demonstrates that people tend to move to seek better lives in developed countries. When it comes to forced migration, such as in the case of the Syrians, people have no choice but to move. But currently, Syrians are stuck in countries neighbouring Syria, with developed countries not doing much, if at all, to help to them relocate and allow them to start a better life. Irregular migrants to do not choose to migrate irregularly, through smuggling networks; by risking their lives in open seas; by being at the whim of authorities and smugglers. They do so because they are often left without a legal option to seek asylum and safety.
Currently, European Union countries are using various practices, policies, and technologies to prevent asylum seekers and refugees from making claims on European territories. The EU’s approach corresponds with global trends in migration management implemented by Australia, Canada, UK, and the United States among others. Territorial access matters to asylum applications. An applicant must be physically in the territory of the country they are claiming asylum in. An embassy, in this case, does not count as a national territory. Without that physical access, there can be no asylum application. This system creates “good” refugees who sit and wait in UNHCR camps to be sponsored, while “bad” asylum-seekers that migrate irregularly and “jump-the-queue.” However, when anyone of the approximately 2 million Syrian nationals living in Turkey looking at the hard facts to assess their chances of UNHCR relocation, will figure out that since the start of the conflict, US only sponsored 1000 Syrians, UK 500, Canada 1300 (with most of these refugees being sponsored privately by family members), Kurdi family applied through this private sponsorship programme for Canada, and was refused. A Syrian national living in Turkey, does not risk his/her life because they simply want to cheat the system, or “jump-the-queue.” The queue, in fact, does not really exist, and where they are right now, they cannot work legally. The UNHCR’s implementing partner on the ground in Turkey, the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants is overburdened. They do not posses the institutional capacity at the moment to process and register 2 million individuals. The waiting time for even getting an appointment for registration is measured in years at this point. With no real stable work opportunities, these individual can survive in Turkey, but they can’t live and prosper.
In the past two week, I had two separate encounters with Syrian nationals in Turkey. First one was during a short visit to Edremit, a coastal town in North Western Turkey. In and around Edremit, Syrians wait to be smuggled into the Greek Island of Lesvos on their way to the European Union. They pay a hefty sum to be smuggled into Greece, which they cannot easily afford. During the day, they either hide in the forests, away from the gendarmerie and the police, or work illegally in the fields for very little pay. Most of them are legally entitled to be in Turkey, but cannot exit Turkey legally without a proper visa issued to their now expired Syrian passports; this is an after effect of the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement. Without such a visa, Turkey refuses to issue them with an exit visa.
The EU and Turkey signed a readmission agreement back in 2013 that stipulates that irregular migrants that cross into EU territory via Turkey can be deported back to Turkey if their asylum application is rejected. FRONTEX, the EU’s external border security agency, is collaborating with national coast guards, police forces, and border guards to prevent irregular migrants from entering in the first place, but if they do enter the readmission agreement is there to ensure their deportation back to Turkey, at the expense of Turkish taxpayers. To prevent this Turkey does not allow Syrians to leave Turkey for Europe through regular means.
This is the catch-22 faced by Syrian nationals living in Turkey. They can stay in Turkey permanently, but for the time being but for the most part they cannot work legally, they cannot migrate elsewhere through regular means because they do not possess a Syrian passport and the backlog in the UNHCR registration system offers no realistic prospect. This takes me to the second encounter. Only few days ago, prior to boarding a flight to Belgrade in Istanbul, my partner and I witnessed a situation that is neither exceptional, nor uncommon for Syrian-born people trying to travel out of the Istanbul Ataturk Airport. In this case, a Syrian-born Turkish citizen a valid passport, and her two children, was not given the right to board the plane to Belgrade. The airport employee’s “reason” for this was that although she was a Turkish citizen with a valid passport, but her passport was expiring in less than 6 months and that she was a Syrian born Turkish citizen. He argued that, Serbian authorities would not have granted her visa-waiver status granted to Turkish citizens travelling to Serbia without that 6 months on her passport, even though they would have given that exception to “normal” Turkish citizens. He also suggested that by letting her board the plane, the employee would risk receiving a personal fine of 5000 euros by the airline. To be able to travel to Belgrade, she would have had either have a new Turkish passport, or to go to a Serbian consulate in Turkey and receive a visa on her no-longer valid Syrian passport, and then travel to Serbia with that passport. So even though she was a Turkish citizen, the fact that she was born in Syria made her a persona-non-grata for Serbian authorities. This is the case for most, if not all, European states at the moment. The current visa regime is taxing at best of times for citizens of Turkey, however, the current situation makes it nearly, if not absolutely, impossible for Syrians to get a visa and travel to Europe out of the fear that they would seek asylum upon arrival.
The status of Syrians living in Turkey is precarious at best. While on the short term, they are provided with necessary services, they are unable to work legally. Turkish authorities is doing a lot to provide for the Syrians, but there are structural issues that cannot be addressed by Turkey alone. While Syrians can live in Turkey, they cannot leave. While they can have certain legal protections under the temporary protection status, they have to wait “in line” for years on end to be even considered for a line in the UNHCR relocation “pool.” Turks and Syrians are developing and antagonistic relationship towards one another. From the taxi drivers in Edremit, to airport personnel in Istanbul, everyday Turkish citizens are enacting and internalizing the border in their own ways by regulating, reporting, suspecting the Syrian mobilities. European (b)ordering practices are becoming increasingly internal to Turkish citizens. While the Readmission Agreement was primarily introduced to prevent irregular migration through Turkey, it was presented to the domestic constituency in Turkey as a road map for visa-free travel to Europe. So in other words, while not discussed openly, the plight of Syrians living in Turkey has become a stake in the Turkish government’s bargaining position for visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the EU. This is the current status of Syrian nationals living in Turkey.

http://thedisorderofthings.com/2015/09/03/the-status-of-syrian-nationals-residing-in-turkey/

this is why those kiddies and thousands of others like them died

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/09/02/syrian-civil-war-syrian-boy-turkish-beach/?utm_campaign=wp-to-twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

the liberal elite turned their back on syria 4 years ago. People exactly like you who are bleating the loudest that something must be done wanted nothing to do with the slaughter in syria.
the cause of this slaughter is Assad ad daesh and the numerous Muslim factions that are happy to kill and maim their way across the region becasue of a book. Finish daesh and remove Assad and those people will not need to flee, but I guess that would not enable you to wring your hands enough and feel all worthy would it. your sort make me sick

That's rich, coming from someone living in a country that is bombing the Kurds, the only people actually winning anything against ISIS.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Christie wrote:

Perhaps the life jackets came loose when they fell into the water? They were fake after all and of poor quality.

they are not expensive to buy good quality ones if they were bought at all

WTF, yeah because they are now or have to be in your eyes experts on life jackets. That again is absurd and speaking in hindsight on your part. They saw some and bought some. They were not to know they are faulty. So I suppose you have never bought anything later found faulty?

So is it not true that his sister had applied on behalf of a different brother?

The trouble is that if they make this poor child a symbol, people will go into the background of this family, and not everyone will think that they were fleeing for their lives.

Raggamuffin wrote:So is it not true that his sister had applied on behalf of a different brother?

The trouble is that if they make this poor child a symbol, people will go into the background of this family, and not everyone will think that they were fleeing for their lives.

Yes it is true that his sister had at first tried to get his brother over first, the reason given was because he had school age children. But when that failed, she said there was no point in trying for the other brother, so instead sent him the money to pay the smugglers for the boat over to Kos.

So engaging in criminal activity of people smuggling for purely selfish reasons was the cause of this child's unnecessary death...!!!???



All accessories to the crime and should all be arrested and prosecuted!!!



Greed it was indeed...