THREAD: Early March 1000s of asylum seekers were funneled to the TR border with GR at Evros. They've been called "invaders" & even “biological weapons”.
Who were the people at the fence?
What happened to them?
Where are they now?
@LHReports investigates
Who were the people at the fence?
What happened to them?
Where are they now?
@LHReports investigates
After Covid erupted & Turkey burned down their shelters & bussed them out of #Pazarkule, we followed. For a month we tracked 30 people from quarantine camps nr Syria to the Aegean coast & prison in Ankara.
Many came from Syria. Like Ibrahim (41) who tried to reach his wife and 3 kids in Germany. Or Rima (45), who was a nurse in Daraa, covered the impact of the war on video and is therefore seen as an anti-regime activist.
Using detailed testimony, documents & open source evidence, we reconstructed how they came to Pazarkule, where they were taken afterwards & how many were left humiliated & destitute on the street in Izmir & Istanbul.
#OSINT enabled us to reconstruct & confirm locations, identities, violent incidents & routes of travel. They show a high level of control & coordination of asylum seekers actions & movements by Turkey. But also how lives were chaotically pulled apart by shifting priorities.
In @Guardian @katymfallon reports on how Turkey used asylum seekers as pawns in a bid to exert pressure for EU support in over Syria, then made them suffer in quarantine camps theguardian.com/global-develop…
In @EFSYNTAKTON Nikolas Zirganos debunks a malicious claim that Covid-infected migrants were being readied to be sent to Greece. He traces the origin of the disinformation & how it found its way into mainstream media efsyn.gr/kosmos/242538_…
More stories in Belgian and Dutch media in the coming days. All articles were produced in the #BordersNewsroom, an investigations hub from @LHReports.
"The pawns of Erdoğan"
Story from our #BordersNewsroom, published with
Dutch newspaper @trouw today
trouw.nl/buitenland/syr…
Story from our #BordersNewsroom, published with
Dutch newspaper @trouw today
trouw.nl/buitenland/syr…
@trouw This is an analysis and reconstruction @jeroenzuallaert, editor at @Knack. How Erdogan uses refugees to get leverage on the EU #pazarkule
knack.be/nieuws/traanga…
knack.be/nieuws/traanga…
