The refugees who lost their lives during dangerous attempts to cross the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas to reach Europe from Turkey are buried without a name and identified only by a number in the western coastal city of İzmir
İzmir’s Doğançay Cemetery is one of the places where refugees are buried. In this cemetery, there is not a single grave that identifies the person buried there by name. At the graves there are only wooden panels on which is written a number, issued by the İzmir Institute of Forensic Medicine.
The bodies of the refugees who died at sea are first taken to the İzmir Institute of Forensic Medicine, where an autopsy is done and DNA samples are taken. The bodies remain in the morgue for around 15 days, after which, if no one arrives to claim the body, they are buried with a funeral prayer in Doğançay Cemetery.
Turkey has opened its doors to refugees, particularly Syrians, fleeing civil war in their country, yet many are aiming for Europe where they can attain asylum status. In Turkey, refugees are treated as “guests” and are without any formal legal protection. Because Syrians have difficulty receiving an education and getting employment in Turkey, they set their sights on Europe for a better future.
Thousands of refugees have left Turkey through dangerous means, with many crossing the seas in overcrowded dingy boats in order to make it onto Greek soil. Many refugees pay large amounts of money to human traffickers who do not offer any certainty for the migrants’ safety. Recently in Turkey there has been exposed a market for selling fake life vests.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 1,004,356 refugees have arrived in Europe by sea and 3,771 have died or gone missing on their journey in 2015. Ninety-thousand refugees have been saved by coast guard teams.
On Tuesday alone, Turkish authorities found the bodies of 34 migrants, three of which were children, at two coastal locations.
Lawyer Eda Bekçi, head of the Association for Solidarity with Refugees (Mülteci-Der), told Today’s Zaman that in the past year there have been far too many deaths observed. Bekçi noted that both in Turkey and throughout the world, the past year has shown a record number of refugees fleeing their war-torn countries and, as a result, an increased number of refugee deaths. “We have witnessed the most painful part of this in İzmir. We have seen the deaths in the Aegean Sea and 2016 does not paint a better picture. As long as people are prevented from seeking asylum [in Turkey], then they will continue to make these deadly journeys. It will continue for the next year, perhaps taking different directions and with more experienced human traffickers and higher costs,” the lawyer stated.
Bekçi continued: “There are those who have died and there are also those who are lost. We receive many requests for help from people who have lost their close ones. There are not good records taken regarding those who have lot their lives or those who have been saved.
TURKIYE
