Thousands of Syrian refugees are assembling in Turkey in a convoy, which organisers have dubbed the Caravan of Light, in an audacious and desperate attempt to enter the EU en masse.
Since early September, Syrians have been drawing up plans for the journey via a Telegram channel, which now has more than 85,000 members.
The organisers, who are believed to be Syrian refugees themselves, have told people to bring sleeping bags, tents, lifejackets, water, canned food and first aid kits. The actual number of people in the caravan is unclear, but organisers say about 100,000 people are expected.
There are more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, where there have been recent reports of rising tensions and violence against Syrians in parts of the country.
As dawn broke on Monday, members of the caravan began their journey to the designated meeting point of Edirne, a city in the north-west of Turkey near the border with Greece, which was announced on the Telegram channel the day before. Their plan is to walk across the Greek border to make their way into the EU.
The group includes doctors, engineers, and lawyers, who have come from all over Syria after fleeing the civil war, which began in 2011.
In a statement, the organisers explained that the caravan, which “came out of the womb of the revolution”, was sparked by the “abhorrent racism” they have been exposed to from “some parties in the Turkish republic”, which they say has led to Syrians being killed.
The organisers also referred to the “pressure on us to return to the areas of the Syrian regime, and this means endangering our lives once again”.
On Monday evening, members of the caravan were attacked on the Greek border by people smugglers, according to one of the organisers. As of Tuesday morning, the caravan had decided to regroup in Istanbul before heading to the border together in one group.
Khairu, a 22-year-old engineer, came to Turkey in 2018 from Homs, and is planning to join the caravan. He left his home in Mersin, a city in the south, on Monday to go to Istanbul where he is meeting friends travelling from Hayat, near the Syrian-Turkish border. Once there, they will wait for further instructions.
“There is no future for me and every Syrian here,” said Khairu, adding that he fears, “a sudden killing or barbaric deportation”. He said he had experienced racism while living in Turkey, and wanted to “live without the fear of tomorrow, because fear of tomorrow is a very slow death”.
Some members of the Telegram group voiced their concerns over whether they would be deported back to Syria if they were caught. Khairu said deportation was “most likely” if they were arrested, but he was “fully prepared for that”.
The caravan is calling on the UN to protect Syrian refugees from “all forms of physical, psychological and political abuse”. They also call on the Syrian interim government to communicate with the EU “to open their doors to this convoy or find immediate solutions”.
Yuko Narushima, a spokesperson for the the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) told the Guardian the agency was aware of social media announcements aimed at organising large movements of people from Turkey towards the EU, but it was not involved and did not encourage this.
“We are concerned for the safety and wellbeing of those who decide to take part in this movement, which – based on previous experiences with similar organised movements around the world – would probably be risky and dangerous,” she said.
Already, about 400 people have been forced to return to their homes in Idlib, Syria, after they tried to cross the Syrian border into Turkey to join the caravan but were attacked by hardline Islamist militants.
Taha Elghazi, a prominent Syrian refugee rights activist in Turkey, who is not part of the caravan, said he understood why many Syrians want to leave Turkey because of the “rise in racism”, as well as financial difficulties caused by “economic inflation”.
However, he warned that the Turkish government would not allow groups to gather at the border with Greece, while EU countries were also tightening security on their borders. “All of these factors mean that there will be brutal treatment of refugees when they are on this trip, and the caravan’s approach is not clear and it may endanger them,” he said.
Refugee rights groups have warned that anti-Syrian racism is becoming an alarming trend across Turkey.
Faris Mohammed al-Ali, an 18-year-old Syrian, was killed in an alleged racist attack in Antakya at the beginning of September, while 70-year-old Leyla Mohammed was kicked in the face by a Turkish man in May. Those two incidents sparked an international outcry, but many more go unreported out of fear that victims will be forcibly returned to Syria, said Sara Hashash, at the Syria Campaign, a human rights advocacy group.
“Syrian refugees have fled a bloody conflict, torture, enforced disappearance and other abhorrent abuses to seek safety in Turkey. It is appalling that they now find themselves facing further attacks,” she said.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has previously pledged to protect the people who fled the war and not expel them, but up to 150 Syrians were forcibly deported earlier this year, despite some of them having official identification documents.
A plan to forcibly relocate one million Syrians to north-east Syria has also been gaining momentum.
