Thousands of Afghan migrants have hit a dead end in Turkey

NESAR AHMED spent over a month on the Iranian side of the mountainous Turkish frontier, forced to move from one safe house to another, beaten and extorted by smugglers and middlemen. Muhammad Reza and his eight companions burrowed through deep snow for two days before slipping into Turkey through a broken fence. Another migrant, also named Muhammad, lost track of his father when Iranian border guards opened fire on their group. He and his young wife made it across; his father was caught and deported.

The men all say they come from parts of Afghanistan torn by fighting between Taliban and government forces. Now they live in Van, a concrete-block Turkish city squeezed between a huge lake and spectacular mountains an hour’s drive from the border. They arrived in Turkey expecting refuge. Instead they found a long queue to nowhere.