As Turkey locks down, refugees are the first to suffer

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AT THE END of February, when Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he would open his country’s borders with Greece to migrants and refugees, Salih, an Afghan living in Istanbul, heeded the call, as did thousands of others. But the Greek side of the border was closed. For ten days, Salih waited and slept rough near the main crossing. Eventually, Turkish police drove him and a few others to a river separating the two countries and ordered the group to cross by boat, threatening them with batons. Greek guards then captured him, took his cash and phone, and sent him back. By the time he returned to Istanbul, where he had earned a living fixing windows since escaping the Taliban, the covid-19 pandemic was in full swing. His job was gone. The company he worked for had closed. Salih, who lives with his wife and two children, can no longer pay rent and faces eviction. “We ran out of money,” he says. “We have nothing left.”