Turkey’s EU-funded deportation machine
The EU has funnelled hundreds of millions of euros into a shadowy deportation system operating just outside its borders in Turkey. Syrian and Afghan refugees have been detained, abused and even killed as a result
Syrian and Afghan men, women, and children are being locked in EU-funded removal centres where they face torture and abuse, and then forcibly deported to sometimes deadly conditions – as the EU watches on.
Over the last decade, millions of refugees fleeing persecution from Taliban rule and the ongoing Syrian civil war have sought refuge in Turkey. The EU deems it unsafe to deport Syrians and Afghans back to their home countries, yet makes Turkey a buffer zone to stop them reaching Europe – in return for billions of euros.
In recent years, with the Turkish economy nosediving and anti-refugee sentiment rising, Turkey has stepped up efforts to deport migrants. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Afghans have been returned from Turkey. This has been made possible by a vast infrastructure of arrest, detention and expulsion – one of the largest migration detention systems in the world – built and funded by the EU.
An investigation by Lighthouse Reports, in collaboration with El País, Der Spiegel, Politico, Etilaat Roz, SIRAJ, NRC, L’Espresso and Le Monde, provides an unprecedented look inside this deportation system and how the EU knowingly helped create and sustain it.
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We documented €213 million euros in EU funding for the construction and maintenance of around 30 removal centres in Turkey, with a total of nearly €1 billion given to the country to help manage the flow of people across its borders. Some of these funds have been used to expand fingerprinting systems now used to track down and pick up migrants on the streets, and to kit out removal centres with barbed wire and higher walls.
Documents, visual evidence and interviews show that detainees are often denied legal aid and are exposed to unsanitary and overcrowded conditions as well as abuse and even torture. Many are violently coerced into signing documents stating they will voluntarily return to the countries they fled.
We found that the EU is aware that it is funding this abusive system, with its own staff raising alarm about it internally – yet senior officials choose to turn a blind eye.
METHODS
We spoke with over 100 sources, including 37 people who had been detained in 22 different EU-funded removal centres, as well as Turkish, Syrian and Afghan officials and former removal centre staff. Their testimonies about poor conditions, systemic violence and being forced to sign “voluntary” returns documents were supported by an extensive review of visual evidence, court rulings and hundreds of pages of EU documents.
In the most detailed analysis of EU funding for migration management in Turkey to date, we combed through EU and Turkish official reports and briefings, research papers, and procurement and call for tenders documents. We submitted more than 20 freedom of information requests to European Commission agencies, many of which were denied on the grounds that they could harm EU relations with Turkey.
We talked to over a dozen European diplomats and officials in both Brussels and Turkey to better understand the level of official awareness of these abuses and issues with EU monitoring mechanisms meant to provide oversight over how EU funds are used.
We also captured images of EU-funded equipment being used by Turkish officials to conduct mass arrests targeting refugees on the streets of Turkey and transport refugees back to Syria, and traced the equipment in internal EU documents to try to establish their original purpose.
STORYLINES
Abdul Eyse, 28, had been living legally in Turkey for four years when he was detained on the street, imprisoned in an EU-funded centre and violently forced to sign a “voluntary return” paper. Shortly after, he was driven to Syria in a bus with the EU flag emblazoned on it, and left there.
“I was going to buy household supplies when the Turkish police arrested me,” says Abdul. “In prison, we were severely tortured, beaten and insulted, they also detained us in a refrigerator for up to 12 hours. They forced us to sign voluntary deportation papers.”
He had left Syria in 2019 after being injured in a shelling and was living in Turkey with his wife and four-year-old son, who suffers from a heart condition. Unable to support themselves in Turkey without him, they were forced to join him in Syria.
The family is now living in the Syrian province of Idlib, which is controlled by a group the EU deems “terrorist” and where medical care is severely lacking. Ahmad is unable to get a much-needed operation that could save his life.
In some cases, the consequences of being deported from Turkey are fatal. Jamshid*, a father-of-one, served as a member of the Afghan special forces. When the Taliban advanced on Kabul, he fled from Afghanistan and reached Turkey in the summer of 2023.
He was arrested a month later and deported first to Iran, and then to Afghanistan, according to two of his relatives. Weeks later, he was shot dead, with gunshot wounds to the neck and head.
Several European diplomats told us they raised concerns about the EU funding abuses and deportations to senior officials but were ignored. Seven European diplomats in Turkey, who work for the EU or its members, stated that they were aware of forced deportations of Syrians and/or the appalling conditions inside the centres. These issues were “systematically erased” from the EU’s annual reports on Turkey, according to a former EU official. “Everybody knows. People are closing their eyes,” they said.
“European leaders are fully aware of what is going on, they just don’t want to get their hands dirty,” said Emma Sinclair of Human Rights Watch, referring to the forced deportations carried out by Turkey and facilitated with EU money. “The EU is indirectly facilitating forced returns. They subcontract human rights violations to third countries.”
*Name changed for security reasons
This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe and the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund