ISTANBUL // A dark and damp basement of an Istanbul mosque is home to about 30 people who have nowhere else to go, victims of a new and largely unnoticed refugee crisis in Turkey.
Most of the inhabitants of the basement, which used to serve as the mosque’s morgue, are Afghan refugees. They are new arrivals, not from Afghanistan directly, but from Turkey’s eastern neighbour Iran, where conditions for refugees have started to worsen.
There are about 20,000 Afghan refugees in Turkey, most of whom have arrived in recent months, according to the Ankara office of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
At the mosque in the neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu, just outside the ancient city walls, a local charity has been providing shelter, food and clothes for the Afghans and several Iranians, who have also moved into the basement.
“What else can we do,” Kiyaz Aras, the deputy chairman of the charity that runs the mosque, said this week. “They would be out on the street otherwise.”
One of the refugees, Sajjad Ramizani, 18, son of a family of Afghan refugees in Iran, said his parents decided to send him to Turkey with his grandmother and an uncle half a year ago.
He and other refugees say there is increasing pressure on Afghans in Iran to leave, as Tehran is facing growing economic difficulties, caused in part by western sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mr Ramizani’s parents remain in Iran. “But they want to come as soon as they have the money,” he said.
In the past two years, efforts to help refugees in Turkey have focused on the region bordering Syria, where close to 180,000 Syrians are sheltered in government-run camps. But in the shadow of the Syrian crisis, the number of Afghan refugees in Turkey has started to rise dramatically.
Only 7,000 Afghans are officially registered, the UN agency said in a written response to questions this week. “As a result of a sharp increase from June 2012 onwards an additional 13,000 have approached UNHCR.”
Most of the Afghans arriving here come not straight from their homeland, but from Iran, home to around 820,000 Afghan refugees.
The UNHCR said the increase was “due to many factors, including the fear of Afghans for what will happen in Afghanistan after the international troops pull out in 2014 and the economic situation in Iran which makes it very difficult for many Afghans in Iran to be able to survive”.
Abdulriza Sagagi, a spokesman for the Iranian embassy in Ankara, denied that his country was pushing the Afghans out.
“There is no pressure whatsoever,” Mr Sagagi said by telephone. He suggested that such complaints came from Afghans who wanted to improve their chances of being accepted by a western country.
But refugees, such as Mr Ramizani, said the pressure was real.
Born into a family of Afghan refugees in the Iranian city of Isfahan, Mr Ramizani said his family was suddenly confronted with a hostile attitude by Iranian authorities last year.
“We had a shop there, and we had a car,” Mr Ramizani said. “Then the police came and closed down our shop and took away our car.”
Mr Ramizani now works as a helper at a car park in Istanbul and tries to keep in touch with his parents by calling them from one of the phone shops in Zeytinburnu that advertise cheap telephone calls to Afghanistan, Iran and central Asian countries.
Up the road from the mosque, Aci Nusrat, another newly-arrived Afghan refugee, was taking a walk in the warm February sun.
Mr Nusrat, 60, fled Afghanistan shortly after the Soviet invasion of 1979 and settled in the Iranian city of Shiraz, where he worked as a teacher in a karate school. Then, about two months ago, the life he had known for 30 years came to an abrupt end.
“All of a sudden, they refused to give new papers to Afghans,” he said about Iranian authorities. Mr Nusrat and his family of seven decided to go to Turkey, which they reached after a trek over the mountains. After arriving in Zeytinburnu, his son found work at a construction company so the family can afford its own apartment.
Since coming to Istanbul, Mr Nusrat, whose crushing handshake betrayed the lifelong athlete, has been trying to keep fit by working out on gym machines in a public park on the shore of the nearby Sea of Marmara. Although he entered Turkey illegally and lacks valid identity papers, he said he was not concerned about being extradited from Turkey.
“The police here are good, they are bad in Iran,” he said. “I want to stay here.”
Turkey does not grant refugee status to Afghans, but agrees to let them stay in the country while UNHCR officials try to find countries willing to take them in, a process that can take years.
Taner Kilic, director of the Association for Solidarity with Refugees (Multeci-Der), an NGO, said Afghan refugees in Turkey had to wait up to four years before getting their first interview at the UNHCR to talk about a possible move to another country.
via Afghan refugees leave Iran for Turkey – The National.
January 19: A US CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan. 6 ISAF officers died.[3]
June 15: An Afghan army Mil Mi-17 crashed in the Kunar province injuring six.[16]
June 12: A Polish Land Forces Mil Mi-24V was severely damaged at the Warrior base in Ghazni province. Helicopter written off.[17]
June 10: French Army Gazelle Viviane crashed about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Bagram in the north of the country in difficult weather conditions. One person died, the pilot was seriously injured.[18]
May 30: An Australian Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter crashed in Zabul Province 90 km east of Tarin Kowt. The Chinook caught fire after impact, and one of the passengers on board the aircraft later died from injuries sustained in the crash. Five other Australians on board the chopper suffered minor injuries.[21]
November 28: French Navy Dassault Rafale fighter crashed off Pakistan after its pilot parachuted to safety. The Rafale was operating from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which at the time was supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan.[32]
August 10: A British RAF CH-47D Chinook crashed in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan . “The helicopter due to technical problems crashed in Gereshk district at 04:00 a.m. local time, as a result one soldier sustained injury,” spokesman for provincial administration Daud Ahmadi told Xinhua. Meanwhile, a NATO source with press department in southern region confirmed the incident, saying it was a hard landing and all four aboard were rescued safe and sound.[38][39]
September 25: A German CH-53G helicopter crash-landed in the border area between RC-North and West during a med-evac. No soldiers were killed during this incident. The helicopter was blown up by Norwegian and Latvian forces after they had spent two days under siege by Taliban forces.[citation needed]
August 31: A Dutch F-16A Block 20 MLU fighter crashes near Ghazni, killing the pilot.[106]
* February 11, 2012: A Mi-8 helicopter under contract for NATO forces crashed in southern Afghanistan and at least four people on board were killed.The aircraft, owned by the Kabul-based logistics company Supreme and crewed by four Tajik civilians, went down somewhere in the west of Zabul province.[139]
July 6, 2011: IL-76 cargo plane, registered 4K-AZ55, was destroyed in an accident near Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. The plane is said to have flown into the side of a mountain at about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters).The transport plane carried a total of 18 tons of cargo for the NATO-led forces at Bagram Air Base.[141]
October 12, 2010: A L-100-30 Lockheed Hercules (Leased from Transafrik Registration 5X-TUC)cargo plane crashed in a fireball and plummeted into a mountain crevice near the Afghan capital. Eight crew members (six Filipinos, one Indian and one Kenyan) were all killed.[142]
June 4, 2010: A L-100-30 Lockheed Hercules (Leased from Transafrik Registration S9-BAT) sustained substantial damage in a landing accident at Sharana AB, Afghanistan. The airplane came to rest beside the runway. The number 4 propeller separated from the engine and the undercarriage was pushed up into the wheel wells.[144]
May 30, 2010: A Mi-8 contract helicopter made a hard landing in the Jaji district of Paktiya Province. A civilian on the ground was killed when he was struck by debris, and three crew members received minor injuries.[145]
May 2, 2010: A Mi-8 helicopter (EX-40008) under contract for NATO forces in Afghanistan crashed during emergency landing at FOB Kalagush,Nuristan. Crewmembers injured during the incident.[146]
March 1, 2010: A Airbus A300 cargo plane operating for DHL Airways leased from ACT Airlines reportedly registered TC-ACB, suffered a landing mishap at Bagram Air Base , Afghanistan. It came to rest on the left runway shoulder of runway 03, approximately 500 ft north of taxiway Charlie and just south of the 3000 feet remaining distance marker.It has been reported that the airplane suffered a collapse of, presumably the left hand, main undercarriage.Aircraft written off.[148]
November 23, 2009: A Mi-8 helicopter under contract for NATO forces crashed in eastern Logar province.Three Ukrainians were killed in the crash. Helicopter belonged to Air Freight Aviation(UAE).[149]
July 19, 2009: A Mi-8 helicopter under contract for NATO forces in Afghanistan crashed at Kandahar air base, killing 16 people and wounding five others. Helicopter belonged to Vertikal-T (Russia).[150]
July 14, 2009: A Mi-26 helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan, killing the six Ukrainian crewmembers. The aircraft belonged to Pectox-Air, a Moldovan aviation firm.[151]
April 24, 2006: An An-26 leased by the US State Department and carrying US DEA agents crashes on landing at Bost airport in Lashkar Gah, killing the two Ukrainian pilots and two young girls on the ground. The plane attempted to avoid a truck during landing[155]
November 11, 2005: A Georgian registered IL-76 operated by Pakistan’s Royal Airlines, on charter to carry food for coalition troops, crashes near Khak-e-Shahidan village, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) northwest of Kabul, killing all 8 crew members (5 Russians, 2 Ukrainians and 1 Pakistani)[156]
November 27, 2004: A US Registered CASA 212 contracted by the US Department of Defense to supply American forces deployed in remote areas of Afghanistan entered a box canyon and struck the 14,650 foot level of Baba Mountain, which has a peak elevation of 16,739 feet. The flight was about 25 nm north of the typical route between Bagram and Farah. All six occupants were killed[159]
February 22, 2004: AB-212 helicopter crashed after coming under fire 65 kilometres south-west of the southern city of Kandahar.Pilot Mark Burdorf, 45 years-old, killed. Helicopter belonged to Pacific Helicopters(Australia).[160]
