As Key Votes Loom, Turkish Parties Vow to Send Migrants Home 

People walk under the election banner of Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Türkiye, 08 May 2023. (EPA)
People walk under the election banner of Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Türkiye, 08 May 2023. (EPA)
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As Key Votes Loom, Turkish Parties Vow to Send Migrants Home 

People walk under the election banner of Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Türkiye, 08 May 2023. (EPA)
People walk under the election banner of Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Türkiye, 08 May 2023. (EPA)

For Nidal Jumaa, a Syrian from Aleppo, life in Türkiye is tough. He works part-time at a furniture workshop and collects plastics and cardboard from trash cans that he sells for recycling, but can hardly afford the rent for his run-down house in a low-income neighborhood of Ankara.

Despite the hardship, the 31-year-old would prefer to remain in Türkiye than return to Syria where he no longer has a house or a job. Most of all, he worries that his 2-year-old son, Hikmat, who requires regular medical supervision following two surgeries, wouldn't be able to receive the treatment he needs back home.

“Where would we go in Syria? Everywhere is destroyed because of the war,” Jumaa said. “We can’t go back. Hikmat is sick. He can’t even walk.”

Syrians fleeing the civil war — now into its 12th year — were once welcomed in Türkiye out of compassion, making the country home to the world’s largest refugee community. But as their numbers grew — and as the country began to grapple with a battered economy, including skyrocketing food and housing prices — so did calls for their return.

A shortage of housing and shelters following a devastating earthquake in February revived calls for the return of Syrians, who number at least 3.7 million.

The repatriation of Syrians and other migrants has become a top theme in Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections when the country will decide whether to give incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a new mandate to rule or bring an opposition candidate to power.

All three presidential hopefuls running against Erdogan have promised to send refugees back. Erdogan himself has not mentioned the migration issue on the campaign trail. However, faced with a wave of backlash against refugees, his government has been seeking ways to resettle Syrians back home.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the joint candidate of an alliance of opposition parties that includes nationalists, says he plans to repatriate Syrians on a voluntary basis within two years. If elected, he would seek European Union funds to build homes, schools, hospitals and other amenities in Syria and encourage Turkish entrepreneurs to open factories and businesses to create employment.

Kilicdaroglu has also said that he would renegotiate a 2016 migration deal between Türkiye and the European Union, under which the EU offered the country billions of euros in return for Ankara's cooperation in stemming the flow of refugees into European countries.

“How long must we carry this heavy load?” Kilicdaroglu said in an address to ambassadors from European nations last month. “We want peace in Syria. We want our Syrian brothers and sisters who took refuge in our country to live in peace in their own country.”

Sinan Ogan, a candidate backed by an anti-migrant party, says his government would consider sending Syrians back “by force if necessary.”

Faced with mounting public pressure, Erdogan’s government, who long defended its open-door policy toward refugees, began constructing thousands brick homes in Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria to encourage voluntary returns. His government is also seeking reconciliation with Syrian President Bashir al-Assad to ensure the refugees’ safe return.

The Syrian government, however, has made normalization of ties conditional on Türkiye withdrawing its troops from areas under its control following a series of military incursions, and on Ankara cutting support to opposition groups.

“Realistically speaking, implementing the promises (of repatriation) is much harder than restoring the (Turkish) economy,” said Omar Kadkoy, an expert on migration at the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank. “At the end of the day, if the opposition comes to power or if the government stays in power, I don’t really see how they could repatriate 3.5 million Syrians in two years.”

Kadkoy continued: “Assad is so maximalist with his demands from Türkiye to accept millions of people back. I don’t think Türkiye is ready to meet his demands.”

Around 60,000 Syrians crossed the border into northern Syria following the earthquake, after Türkiye relaxed regulations allowing them to return to Syria and remain there for a maximum of six months. The move allowed refugees to check on family or homes in quake-hit areas of northern Syria. It was not immediately known how many have crossed back into Türkiye, or plan to do so.

Kadkoy says high inflation and a cost of living crisis have made life for Syrians in Türkiye difficult.

“But when compared to ... having no place to stay, no functioning democracy ... where you might be subjected to bombing and shelling at any given moment, (Syrians) prefer the bad conditions here in Türkiye over having nothing in Syria,” he said.

In Ankara’s impoverished Ismetpasa neighborhood, plastic sheets partially cover the roof to keep the rain out of the house where Jumaa, his wife Jawahir and their four children live. The family has no furniture and they sleep on mats they throw around a coal heater.

Jawahir Jumaa says their home in Syria was destroyed in air raids. The few relatives that have remained there live in tents that are flooded in winter months.

“The living conditions (here) are better than in Syria,” she said.

Hikmat, her youngest son, had a cyst and a tumor removed from his head and back. “They can’t treat him in Syria. They don’t know how,” Jawahir added.

Asked about the anti-migrant sentiment and calls for the repatriation of Syrians, Nidal Jumaa was fatalistic.

“There is nothing we can do, for now we are carrying on living. We are under the mercy of God,” he responded.

The neighborhood is close to an area where riots broke out two years ago after a Turkish teenager was stabbed to death in a fight with a group of young Syrians. Hundreds of people chanting anti-immigrant slogans took to the streets, vandalized Syrian-run shops and hurled rocks at refugees’ homes.

Hassan Hassan, a neighbor, says he isn’t concerned about the violence that erupted or about the calls for Syrians to leave.

“I’m not afraid, we suffered too many terrible things, what could happen that is worse than what we (have already) lived through?” he asked.



Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
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Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa

Hatem Abdelhamid stands amid his once-thriving date palms in northern Sudan, helpless as a prolonged war-driven power outage cripples irrigation, causing devastating crop losses and deepening the country's food crisis.

"I've lost 70 to 75 percent of my crops this year," he said, surveying the dying palms in Tanqasi, a village on the Nile in Sudan's Northern State.

"I'm trying really hard to keep the rest of the crops alive," he told AFP.

Sudan's agricultural sector -- already battered by a two-year conflict and economic crisis -- is now facing another crushing blow from the nationwide power outages.

Since the war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, state-run power plants have been repeatedly targeted, suffering severe damage and ultimately leaving farms without water.

Like most Sudanese farms, Abdelhamid's depends on electric-powered irrigation -- but the system has been down "for over two months" due to the blackouts.

Sudan had barely recovered from the devastating 1985 drought and famine when war erupted again in 2023, delivering a fresh blow to the country's agriculture.

Agriculture remains the main source of food and income for 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Now in its third year, the conflict has plunged more than half the population into acute food insecurity, with famine already taking hold in at least five areas and millions more at risk across conflict-hit regions in the west, center and south.

The war has also devastated infrastructure, killed tens of thousands of people, and displaced 13 million.

A 2024 joint study by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that nearly a third of rural households have lost irrigation and water access since the war began.

Without electricity to power his irrigation system, Abdelhamid -- like thousands of farmers across the country -- was forced to rely on diesel-powered pumps.

But with fuel scarce and prices now more than 20 times higher than before the war, even that option is out of reach for many.

"I used to spend 10,000 Sudanese pounds (about four euros according to the black market rate) for irrigation each time," said another farmer, Abdelhalim Ahmed.

"Now it costs me 150,000 pounds (around 60 euros) because there is no electricity," he told AFP.

Ahmed said he has lost three consecutive harvests -- including crops like oranges, onions, tomatoes and dates.

With seeds, fertilizers and fuel now barely available, many farmers say they won't be able to replant for the next cycle.

In April, the FAO warned that "below average rainfall" and ongoing instability were closing the window to prevent further deterioration.

A June study by IFPRI also projected Sudan's overall economic output could shrink by as much as 42 percent if the war continues, with the agricultural sector contracting by more than a third.

"Our analysis shows massive income losses across all households and a sharp rise in poverty, especially in rural areas and among women," said Khalid Siddig, a senior research fellow at IFPRI.