Turkey captures over 500 migrants in multiple locations

ISTANBUL

AA photo

Turkey has captured more than 500 migrants for illegal border crossings in multiple provinces around the country over the past three days.

In the northwestern province of Çanakkale, 285 migrants of Syrian and Afghan origin, who were attempting to cross to the Greek island of Lesbos, were captured in Çanakkale’s Ayvacık district on Oct. 14, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Some 230 of them were captured after gendarmerie forces stopped three passenger buses and six minibuses in Ayvacık’s town of Küçükkuyu.

Fifty-five others of Afghan origin were captured after gendarmerie forces held an operation around the Kadırga Bay in Ayvacık’s Behramkale village.

All of the 285 were sent to the migration management directorate in Ayvacık and eight suspects were detained for alleged human trafficking.

In the southeastern province of Batman, 70 migrants of Afghan and Pakistani origin, who had illegally crossed into Turkey with fabricated documents, were captured on Oct. 12 after Batman Gendarmerie Command forces stopped a passenger bus in Batman’s Kozluk district, Doğan News Agency reported.

The Batman Governor’s Office said in a written statement that 68 Afghan nationals and two Pakistani nationals – including 19 adult females, 26 adult males and 25 children – who were holding falsified documents, were captured in a search of a passenger bus owned by a private company on Oct. 12.

The drivers of the bus were detained upon an order from the Kozluk Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, while the captured migrants gave testimonies before they were sent to the local migration management directorate to be deported.

In the western province of Aydın, 148 Syrian and Sudanese migrants who attempted to illegally cross to Greece were captured in Aydın’s Didim and Kuşadası districts on Oct. 13, Anadolu Agency reported.

Ninety Syrian migrants and four Sudanese were captured ahead of an illegal journey in Didim’s Akköy neighborhood.

The other 54 migrants, all of them Syrians, were captured in Kuşadası’s Güzelçamlı neighborhood in an operation conducted by gendarmerie forces, and three suspects, identified by the initials Ş.T., Y.D. and E.B., were arrested for human trafficking activities.

Meanwhile, in the northwestern province of Yalova, 34 Syrian and Iraqi migrants, who had illegally crossed into Turkey, were captured on Oct. 13 while in the back of a pickup truck, Anadolu Agency reported.

The pickup truck carrying the 34 migrants, including eight children, was reported to have crossed a bay on a ferry, and Yalova Gendarmerie Command forces captured the migrants as they landed.   

In the Aegean province of Muğla, 25 migrants of Pakistani, Afghan and Myanmarese origins, who were reportedly readying to illegally cross into Greek islands across the Aegean Sea, were captured in Muğla’s Milas district on Oct. 13.

Some 12 of them were Pakistani, nine of them were Afghan and four of them were Myanmarese.