The Bridge, Istanbul © Isa Artar.
Taksim Square, Istanbul © Isa Artar.
Mis Street, Istanbul © Isa Artar.
The end of the work day, on the metro-bus. © Alaa Hassan, 2014.
On the ferry to EU. © Alaa Hassan, 2014.
Pedestrians, Kadıköy © Alaa Hassan, 2014.
Turkey – always a hub of various migration movements – is today both a country of refuge and transit, as well as a country from which people flee.
Today, Turkey is the country with the highest number of refugees in the world, estimated by the UNHCR at four million. 11See UNHCR, 2021: Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Turkey. https://www.unhcr.org/tr/en/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-turkey (02.11.2021). They thus represent five per cent of the total Turkish population and 15 per cent of the global population of forced migrants. 22See Kınıklıoğlu, Suat, 2020: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes. SWP Comment 2020(5). https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-changing-attitudes-and-fortunes (02.11.2021). Most of them – approximately 3.6 million – fled the war in neighboring Syria. 33See UNHCR, 2021: Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Turkey. https://www.unhcr.org/tr/en/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-turkey (02.11.2021). On the other hand, there are no reliable figures on non-Syrian refugees, most of which coming from Afghanistan and Iraq. 44See Amnesty International, 2016: No safe refuge. Asylum-seekers and refugees denied effective protection in Turkey. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/3825/2016/en/ (02.11.2021), p. 15.
More than 90 per cent of the refugees hosted by Turkey live in large cities. 55See Balcioglu, Zeynep, 2018: Case Report: Sultanbeyli, Istanbul, Turkey. In: Refugees in Towns. https://www.refugeesintowns.org/all-reports/sultanbeyli#about-author (02.11.2021). According to Kınıklıoğlu, the rate is 98 per cent. Kınıklıoğlu, Suat, 2020: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes. SWP Comment 2020(5). https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-changing-attitudes-and-fortunes (02.11.2021). Among these, Istanbul, the capital city of 16 million, is a particular magnet: Estimates of the number of Syrians living there vary between 500,000 66See Balcioglu, Zeynep, 2018: Case Report: Sultanbeyli, Istanbul, Turkey. In: Refugees in Towns. https://www.refugeesintowns.org/all-reports/sultanbeyli (02.11.2021). This figure refers to refugees registered in Istanbul in 2018; the number of Syrian refugees not registered in Istanbul may be significantly higher. and one million. 77See Güsten, Susanne, 2021: Growing xenophobia in Turkey, in: Tagesspiegel (30.07.2021). https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/sie-sollen-verschwinden-die-wachsende-auslaenderfeindlichkeit-in-der-tuerkei/27466598.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-de-DE (02.11.2021). In the poorer outlying districts of the city, where they live for the most part, they sometimes make up a large part of the population. This is because they find both favorable living conditions and informal social networks here. 88Balcioglu, Zeynep, 2018: Case Report: Sultanbeyli, Istanbul, Turkey. In: Refugees in Towns. https://www.refugeesintowns.org/all-reports/sultanbeyli (02.11.2021).
In view of the large number of refugees who are trying to build a life in Istanbul, it is hardly possible to make any general statements about their living conditions, visions for the future, support networks, and so on. The persons interviewed by Elif Yenigün for the We Refugees Archive in the summer of 2021, whom she met in the course of her work as a social worker for Médecins Sans Frontières, give an impression of the diversity of these persons, how they perceive Istanbul as a city of refuge and how they (can) build a life in it. This is also linked to the legal conditions of their stay in Turkey.
Although Turkey is one of the signatory states of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, it has limited this to a geographical condition for itself: Only people fleeing persecution in Europe can be recognized and protected as refugees in Turkey under the Geneva Refugee Convention. However, unlike in the 1930s and 1940s, when Turkey became a refuge for Nazi persecutees from Europe, today the vast majority of people do not flee Europe for Turkey, so new legislation had to be created for an asylum system for these people. In 2013, two years after the war in Syria began, the Turkish Parliament passed the Law on Foreigners and International Protection, established the Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM) as the central coordinating body for asylum, and created new protection statuses. While most people from Syria are granted “temporary protection status,” which does not give them permanent secure residence or political and civil rights, but does grant temporary legal residence, access to the health and education systems, and limited work permission, refugees from other, non-European countries must apply for various forms of “international protection.” “Conditional protection status” is available to those who meet the refugee characteristics of the Geneva Refugee Conventions but do not come from Europe, while “subsidiary protection status” applies to those who face danger to life and limb if returned to their country of origin. The so-called “satellite city policy” is additionally intended to encourage refugees to remain in their assigned provinces or cities in order to relieve the pressure on metropolitan refuge centers. However, many problems occur in the implementation of the Turkish asylum system, according to UNHCR, due to its severe overload. Unfair asylum procedures are often the result. 99UNHCR, 2021: Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Turkey. https://www.unhcr.org/tr/en/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-in-turkey (02.11.2021). See also Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1), p. 474-488; Amnesty International, 2016: No safe refuge. Asylum-seekers and refugees denied effective protection in Turkey. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/3825/2016/en/ (02.11.2021), p. 14-17¸ Karadağ, Sibel / Association for Migration Research (GAR) (ed.), 2021: Ghosts of Istanbul. Afghans at the Margins of Society. https://www.gocarastirmalaridernegi.org/attachments/article/193/GHOSTS%20OF%20ISTANBUL%20N.pdf (02.11.2020), p. 8.
Also, many people live unregistered in Turkey, among them especially many young Afghans. The fact that they have no residence status makes life in Turkey particularly precarious. For fear of deportation, Afghans often remain invisible to the support structures of the state, local authorities, international and local aid organizations and civil society. 1010On the situation of Afghan refugees in Turkey, see Karadağ, Sibel / Association for Migration Research (GAR) (ed.), 2021: Ghosts of Istanbul. Afghans at the Margins of Society. https://www.gocarastirmalaridernegi.org/attachments/article/193/GHOSTS%20OF%20ISTANBUL%20N.pdf (Nov. 02, 2020).
The fact that Turkey was for some time an important transit country for many refugees on their way to Europe has changed significantly as a result of the EU-Turkey Agreement, which was passed in March 2016 and was intended to jointly “regulate” the migration of refugees from Turkey to Greece, in particular to the Greek islands. This agreement has resulted in a 90 per cent decrease in the number of Syrians who have fled to Greece via Turkey. 1111Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1), p. 474-475. Turkey receives financial support for refugee care from the EU in exchange for preventing onward migration to the EU. As one of many implementations of “Fortress Europe,” this “deal” also transforms refugees into a pawn and means of pressure for foreign and domestic political interests. At the same time, it contributes to the fact that Turkey had to become and has become a permanent place of refuge for most refugees – a place where they try to establish a life for a longer period of time.
At the same time, the number of Turks seeking refuge in Europe due to increasing political persecution in Turkey has also risen in recent years. In Germany alone, the number of asylum applications from people from Turkey has increased from 1,578 in 2011 to 10,784 in 2019. 1212BAMF, 2019: The Federal Office in Figures 2019. Asylum, Migration and Integration. https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Statistik/BundesamtinZahlen/bundesamt-in-zahlen-2019.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5 (02.11.2021), p. 21.
In addition to the foreign policy considerations expressed in the EU-Turkey deal, domestic tensions also affect the situation of refugees in Turkey and the political sentiment against them. Following the ruling AKP’s electoral defeats in local elections in several major cities in 2019, the AKP government under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan changed its official course toward refugees in the country. After initially evoking support in solidarity with Syrian (and, among them, mainly Sunni Arab) refugees, the government gave in to deteriorating popular sentiment and opposition pressure as a result of its electoral defeats and tightened its asylum policy. Turkish security forces began in the summer of 2019 to increasingly deport Syrians in the course of a “resettlement program” – from Istanbul, among other places – to the Turkish provinces assigned to them or even to the areas they control in northern Syria. 1313Cf. Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1), p. 475, 488; Deutsche Welle, 2020: Turkey: Nearly 100,000 unregistered Syrians removed from Istanbul, in: Deutsche Welle (04.01.2020). https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-nearly-100000-unregistered-syrians-removed-from-istanbul/a-51888092 (02.11.2020). Thus, in 2019, some 100,000 Syrians were reportedly forced to leave Istanbul, while at the same time a registration freeze was imposed on the city. 1414See Berjikian, Katherine: Turkey defends refugee policy as Syrians leave Istanbul, in CGTN (06.01.2020) https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-01-06/One-in-five-Syrian-refugees-left-Istanbul-in-2019–N13aNqFZcI/index.html (02.11.20201). In 2020, 16,000 people were reportedly deported to Syria and 6,000 to Afghanistan. 1515See Amnesty International, 2021: Turkey 2020. https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/turkey/report-turkey/ (02.11.2021). In the spring of 2020, Erdoğan had thousands of people deported to the border with Greece and instrumentalized them as political leverage against the EU. 1616Cf. Deutsche Welle, EU-Turkey Agreement: The Deal to Deter, in Deutsche Welle (03/18/2021). https://www.dw.com/de/eu-t%C3%BCrkei-abkommen-der-deal-zur-abschreckung/a-56870596 (02.11.2021).
The number of people trying to flee overland from Afghanistan to Turkey has increased sharply in recent years, especially since the withdrawal of international troops in late summer 2021. However, many of them are prevented by pushbacks at the border from entering Turkey and exercising their right to seek asylum. 1717See New York Times, 2021: Afghan Refugees Find a Harsh and Unfriendly Border in Turkey, in New York Times (Aug. 23, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/world/europe/afghanistan-refugees-turkey-iran-taliban-airport.html (Nov. 02, 2021).
These steps reveal the extent to which asylum policy is part of the power struggle between national and local governments and administrations, and between different municipalities. Many fundamental decisions are concluded at the national level, but good coordination and cooperation with local governments – including between Erdoğan’s AKP government and opposition local governments such as the CHP government in Istanbul under Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu – is needed to grant a functioning asylum system. 1818See Kınıklıoğlu, Suat, 2020: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes. SWP Comment 2020(5). https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-changing-attitudes-and-fortunes (02.11.2021). Even within Istanbul, there are major differences in the way different districts deal with refugees and create support or exclusion structures. The size of the city and the diversity of its districts, as well as the discrepancy between official asylum policy and its implementation, prevent Istanbul from developing a unified strategy and attitude as a “city of refuge.” Istanbul, however, is far from having a demonstratively open reception policy, as is the case in Palermo, for example. Nevertheless, refugees are a normal and important part of urban life.
Despite Istanbul’s increasingly restrictive urban policy toward refugees, the city remains a magnet for many of them. Most of them give two main reasons for this, which speak for Istanbul as well as for other cities of refuge such as Paris, Palermo or Berlin. On the one hand, there are informal social networks in Istanbul that can be connected to: Families, acquaintances, people from the same regions of origin already live there and can help new arrivals with their first steps in the city. This is all the more important because formal support structures are often not sufficiently available and, for example, hardly any adequate accommodation for refugees is provided by the state. 1919See Amnesty International, 2016: No safe refuge. Asylum-seekers and refugees denied effective protection in Turkey. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/3825/2016/en/ (02.11.2021), p. 24-25. On the other hand, many promise to find (informal) work in Istanbul with which they can support themselves. Paydar, who fled to Turkey from Aleppo in 2013, explains:
“I didn’t really choose Istanbul actually, we had already people living here. We know them and they were living here and working here in the same area that when we first came. And they said to us, there is work here if you want you can come here and find a house to rent. It’s cheap etc. So according to them we came here. I didn’t know anything about Istanbul.”
Ummuahmed, a Syrian woman, also describes her family’s decision to go to Istanbul as a result of advice from her social networks:
“We had some people, some relatives in Istanbul and they said there are lots of working opportunities in textile factories in Istanbul and you can come and work. So, they came here before us and after them, I came here.”
Since a work permit is very difficult to obtain even for people with official protection status, most refugees in Turkey work informally. The fact that the informal sector is generally large in the Turkish economy makes it easier for many to find a job even without a work permit. 2020Cf. Kınıklıoğlu, Suat, 2020: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes. SWP Comment 2020(5). https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-changing-attitudes-and-fortunes (NOV. 02, 2021). However, in these jobs, they have no rights as workers, no securities for the future, and often earn very poor wages. The competition between different vulnerable groups facilitates wage dumping by employers. 2121Cf. Balcioglu, Zeynep, 2018: Case Report: Sultanbeyli, Istanbul, Turkey. In: Refugees in Towns. https://www.refugeesintowns.org/all-reports/sultanbeyli (02.11.2021); Amnesty International, 2016: No safe refuge. Asylum-seekers and refugees denied effective protection in Turkey. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/3825/2016/en/ (02.11.2021), p. 29-31. These precarious conditions are even more aggravated for people who do not have legal residence status and are thus particularly vulnerable. They often perform physically difficult work as day laborers, are paid poorly or not at all, and are completely at the mercy of their employers for fear of being denounced by them. Finding an apartment and moving around freely is also particularly difficult for illegalized persons. Nacibullah, who came from Afghanistan at the age of 16 and has since been living in Turkey without a residence permit, tells us about this:
“The fact that we came here through illegal ways had consequence that we don’t have any paper such as passport, visa or residence permit. The landlords didn’t want to rent their flats to us since we didn’t have papers. […] We didn’t apply for registration and we don’t have permit to stay. Residence permit requires a lot of money and I don’t have that much money. On the other hand, going to other cities is not suitable option because without passport or paper, bus companies don’t provide you ticket. […] Actually, apart from what I faced with finding a flat; when I first arrived to Istanbul, we couldn’t find a right employer who could pay me as promised. Randomly I worked in one place and then he didn’t pay us. We worked overtime even, it happened that they didn’t pay our overtime efforts.”
Often it is also these particularly precariously placed groups who experience discrimination in Istanbul and are afraid to move around in public space and either be picked up by security forces or not be protected from attacks by the population. Nadège, who fled Cameroon because of her sexual orientation, writes:
“Istanbul is really difficult. Many situation is not comfortable, in Istanbul there is no human rights. They do what they want. Turkey is very difficult. You stay your home and suddenly home owner can come and say ‘go out!’ You didn’t do nothing. Many many things, but for now I don’t have a choice. […] When I first arrived in Istanbul, it’s very very cold. […] And also you afraid about police, you don’t know the situation in the country, you see maybe if I go to outside, police can catch me.”
Ummuahmed’s husband Ebuahmed also addresses this concern of complete defenselessness:
“We are strangers here. Even if somebody violated our rights or do something wrong to us, we cannot ask for our rights, we cannot do any actions, if we do some actions, maybe we will be deported.”
His statement indicates that the situation in the city is also precarious for Syrians with temporary protection status. This is also due to the fact that the social mood towards refugees in Turkey is getting worse and more dismissive. This change is mentioned by Paydar when he describes the difficulties of arriving in the city:
“It took us one week to find a house to rent. Nobody was renting us a house. They were saying: no house for Syrians. I don’t know why, at that time they didn’t hate, they didn’t have the hating situation that we have now, between national people and people that came from outside of Turkey, immigrants I mean. Even then, we found hard time to rent the house.”
The change in public sentiment that Paydar refers to is reflected in surveys: while in 2016, according to a survey by the Konda Demoscopy Institute, most Turks were still in agreement with Syrians living in their area, three years later only a minority were. 2222Cf. Güsten, Susanne, 2021: Die wachsende Ausländerfeindlichkeit in der Türkei, in: Tagesspiegel (30.07.2021). https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/sie-sollen-verschwinden-die-wachsende-auslaenderfeindlichkeit-in-der-tuerkei/27466598.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-de-DE (02.11.2021). According to a poll conducted by Istanbul Bilgi University, 86 percent of Turks agreed that Syrians should be sent back home. 2323Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1), p. 475, 480. A survey by the Migration and Integration Research Center at the Turkish-German University found that just over 70 per cent of the Turkish population believes that Syrians would harm Turkey’s socio-cultural structures and undermine its public services. 2424Kınıklıoğlu, Suat, 2020: Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Changing Attitudes and Fortunes. SWP Comment 2020(5). https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-changing-attitudes-and-fortunes (02.11.2021). With the deterioration of the economic situation in Turkey and the increasing political polarization of society since 2016, refugees – as so often happens when a poor economic situation leads to an increase in xenophobia – have increasingly become scapegoats and are also often associated with crime and terrorism in social media. 2525Cf. Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1), p. 475, 480. They are also increasingly becoming pawns in populist political power struggles. The change of political course described above shows that this mood affects not only everyday social life, but also the basic legal security of refugees’ stay in Syria or their ability to find refuge in Turkey at all.
While a return to the countries of origin continues to be impossible for many due to the ongoing threat of war and persecution in Syria and Afghanistan, for example, further migration to Europe is not only prevented, but for many it is not a vision for the future. According to Rottmann and Kaya, refugees from the Middle East feel a sense of “cultural intimacy” and belonging in Istanbul, which they fear not only to lose in Europe, but to be (even more) affected by exclusion and discrimination. 2626Rottmann, Susan / Kaya, Ayhan, 2020: ‘We can’t integrate in Europe. We will pay a high price if we go there’: culture, time and migration aspirations for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, pp. 474-490 in Journal of Refugees Studies 34(1).
Thus, despite the difficulties described above that many refugees face due to legal, social, and economic exclusion, many describe adjusting to long-term life in Istanbul and having established networks in their immediate living and working environments in which they feel they have arrived or even at home. Istanbul, after all, offers a great diversity of social and professional networks in which very different people can find connections. For example, Dina, who fled Syria and chose Istanbul for her art studies, describes that in no other city in Turkey can she imagine finding people with similar interests and developing professionally and artistically.
As is so often the case, the city of refuge becomes a new home as a space of personal everyday life and personal memories. Paydar, a native of Aleppo who has now lived in Istanbul for eight years, says:
“All I remember is the street that I live here now, and the road to the work that I use in metro. My workplace in Fatih, and the balcony that I used to smoke. When we go to shopping, the mall that we frequented here. When I go to the Sea, the beach that we go to every year. So Istanbul grow on me. So it’s like, all my memories is from here and I cannot recall memories from Aleppo.”
Dina is a young artist from Aleppo and works as a graphic designer in Istanbul. After the war started in Syria, she decided to start a new life in Turkey, together with her brother and mother. She started from scratch with a new life in Turkey, but then she finished her studies as one of the best students in her school.
Human rights lawyer Esin B. talks about the living conditions of refugees in Istanbul and newly created immigration regulations in Turkey, which are compatible with international human rights, but bring legal problems.
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. She lost her home because of the war and does not know if she will…
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Syrian photographer Alaa Hassan looks at the city of Istanbul – as a city of refuge and transit for other Syrian refugees, as a…
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family and now lives and works in Turkey without papers or…
Majid Bolat comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Turkey at the age…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Barry Chukudi is from Nigeria, from Biafra. He fled to Turkey in 2013 due to the violence of the Nigerian military in the struggle…
Dina is 27 years old and comes from Aleppo. Here she talks about her escape, her hopes and the things she had to leave…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then, she lives in Istanbul. In this interview passage, she talks…
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. In this interview excerpt, he describes the problems he faces…
Because of his political and journalistic activities, İsa Artar came under state pressure and police observation in Turkey. Before he was sentenced to a…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
Nacibullah left Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. Two central reasons forced him to flee: existential economic hardship and the war…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Nadège is 34 and comes from Cameroon. Two years ago, she fled to Turkey because she was in danger in her home country due…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled with his brother to Turkey…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the Fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Majid comes from the Darfur region in Sudan and belongs to the ethnic group of the fur people. He fled to Turkey via Libya…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Ummuahmde fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…
Nacibullah came to Turkey from Afghanistan as a 16-year-old in 2018 without his family. He continues to live and work in Istanbul without papers…
Paydar H. is a Kurd from Aleppo in Syria. After the bombing of the city in 2013, he fled to Istanbul via Afrin in…
Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there.…