On April 5, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International documented that Turkish law enforcement officials sent to police the region devastated by the February 6 earthquakes have beaten, tortured, and ill-treated individuals residing there. The organisations spoke of at least 34 men, including Syrian refugees, who faced brutal attacks by Turkish authorities after being accused of theft and looting
On April 4, Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported that 1353 irregular migrants had been intercepted across the country in the previous days, as part of a major operation to crack down on migrants. As pre-election rhetoric heats up, both the sitting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the main opposition candidate have promised to return hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
According to data from Eurostat, Turkish nationals are increasingly seeking protection. 2022 marked a 145 per cent increase in the number of asylum applications filed by Turkish nationals in EU countries with a total of 49,720.
