ANKARA (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Hundreds of protesters took to the streets to the Greek consulate in Istanbul to protest the deaths of 19 migrants along the Turkish-Greek border on Saturday.
They froze to death earlier this week, according to Turkish police, after being illegally thrown back across the border by Greek guards. Athens has strongly denied the charge.
Around 300 protestors marched to the consulate on Istanbul’s main shopping streets carrying a banner saying “Close borders to racism, open to humanity” which was organised by humanitarian groups of Turkey.
As humanitarian workers addressed the throng, dozens of riot cops stood by.
People’s clothes were stripped and their belongings taken. They were abandoned to die, and the entire world has remained silent about it, Chairman of IHH, a humanitarian relief organisation, Fehmi Bülent Yildrim stated.
He urged the European Parliament to “take action as soon as possible on this matter and put an end to this callous mindset that is committing these crimes against humanity.”
The pushbacks, according to Kenan Alpay, deputy chairman of humanitarian organisation Özgür-Der, exhibited “brutality beyond hypocrisy.” He went on to say, “We ask the government of Greece to quit these odious measures.
Turkey routinely accuses Greece of rebuffing migrants attempting to cross the northern land border or reach the Aegean islands of Greece in inflatable dinghies.
Fuat Oktay, Vice President, accused Greece of “murder” in an interview with AHaber on Friday, adding that all EU countries, sadly, were accountable for the deaths of 19 people.
At the time of his meetings with world leaders, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, President of Turkey, promised to bring up Greece’s harsh mistreatment of migrants.
Notis Mitarachi, Greece’s Migration Minister, has termed the fatalities as a “tragedy,” but has firmly denied that Greek authorities pushed the migrants back, maintaining that the migrants never reached the border.
Turkey serves as a major transit hub for migrants from Africa, Asia and Middle East, seeking a better life in Europe, with the majority of them passing through Greece.
The EU, which had 1 million Syrian refugees come into its territory in 2015, negotiated a migration pact with Turkey in 2016 that has drastically decreased the flow of people.
