Turkey tortures, forcibly deports Syrian civilians, report says

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have received more than 100 civilians in northern Syria, who were forcibly deported from the refugee camps in Turkey, ANF News reported on Monday.

Some of the civilians were urgently hospitalized, ANF said, claiming that they were “tortured” by the Turkish police.

Turkey is hosting around 3.7 million Syrian refugees after they fled a civil war in their homeland that began in 2011, whom some of them are located in refugee camps in southeastern border provinces of the country.

In May, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a plan to facilitate the voluntary return of some 1 million Syrian refugees to settle in “safe zones” that Turkey has “cleared of terrorism” in northern Syria.

After deportation, the civilians, including elders, women, and children have arrived in areas close to the front lines in the village of Al-TirwazIya, the eastern countryside of Raqqa, ANF said.

“While I was on my way to work, suddenly the Turkish police arrested me without any accusation. I was subjected to severe torture at the police station, and then they transferred me to a prison-like camp in the desert surrounded by a fence with tight security,” a man among the deportees told ANF, upon their arrival.

“They promised the Syrians to grant them citizenship cards, but they were lying. Turkey treated us badly, and no one defended us. The Turkish police force Syrian refugees to sign a deportation document by which the deportee becomes banned from entering Turkish territory for five years,” he said.

“The Turkish army tortured us brutally when we were arrested at the border, some of us fainted due to brutal torture,” ANF cited another deportee as saying.

SDF Press Center posted a video on social media showing the arrival of the deportees.