Turkey to deport around 600 Afghan migrants this weekend

KABUL (Pajhwok): Turkish Interior Ministry has announced deporting nearly 600 illegal Afghan migrants in eastern Turkey back to Kabul at the end of this week, a media report said on Saturday.

According to Reuters the Afghan migrants had crossed into Turkey through Iran due to “ongoing terrorist activities and economic troubles” in Afghanistan, the ministry said, and security forces had handed the migrants over to provincial immigration authorities.

It said deportation procedures had been completed for 591 migrants in the eastern province of Erzurum and that charter flights to Kabul would be arranged on Saturday and Sunday to send the migrants back.

“Following the completion of deportation procedures for illegal migrants in our other provinces, deportations will speed up and continue in the coming days,” the ministry said in a statement.

Rights groups have criticised Turkey for deporting migrants back to conflict-torn countries, including Afghanistan, saying it was putting their lives at risk.

This week the Hurriyet newspaper reported that several thousand Afghan migrants had crossed into Turkey in recent months and had walked for days from the border to reach Erzurum.

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