Refugees chief questions legality of agreement to send people back to Turkey without guarantees for their protection

A senior UN official says he is very concerned that a hasty EU deal with Turkey could leave Syrian refugees unprotected and at risk of being sent back to a war zone.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees , questioned the legality of an outline deal struck by the EU and Turkey.

“As a first reaction I am deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another, without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law,” he said on Tuesday.

Turkey and EU agree outline of 'one in, one out' deal over Syria refugee crisis Read more

At the heart of the deal between the EU and Turkey is a controversial refugee exchange programme. Under the plan, Syrian refugees on the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey, while European countries would take asylum seekers currently living in Turkey.



Speaking to the European parliament in Strasbourg, Grandi said asylum seekers should only be returned to other states if there was a guarantee that that they would not then be sent back to the place they had fled. The country of return also had to ensure asylum seekers had access to work, healthcare, education and social assistance, Grandi said.



Separately, Vincent Cochetel, regional director for Europe at the office of the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), said an EU commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees over two years, on a voluntary basis, remained “very low”.

“The collective expulsion of foreigners is prohibited under the European convention of human rights,” he told a news briefing in Geneva.

The UNHCR called on Europe to ensure safeguards for refugees being returned to the Middle East at an EU summit next week.

EU leaders have hailed the one-for-one plan as a breakthrough that would deter Syrians from making dangerous journeys across the Aegean Sea.



Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, insisted that sending refugees back to Turkey was legal and in line with the Geneva convention. Citing specific paragraphs in the EU’s asylum procedure directive, he said countries could refuse to consider refugee claims if there was a safe place to send them back to. As Greece had decided Turkey was “a safe country”, he said, the returns policy was legal.



Human rights groups are not convinced. Amnesty International has said it is absurd to describe Turkey as a safe third country, and that some Syrians have been returned to Syria and been shot at while trying to cross the Turkish border.

Amnesty’s Europe director, John Dalhuisen, said: “It’s a really grim day and it’s a really grim deal. It’s being celebrated by people who are dancing on the grave of refugee protection, who want to enforce Fortress Europe and who don’t want these refugees in our countries.

“If it is applied in its absolute sense, then the number of refugees that Europe would take would depend on the number of refugees prepared to risk their lives through other means – and that is staring at a moral abyss.”

Human Rights Watch also said Turkey cannot be regarded as a safe country of asylum. “It is knowingly shortsighted for EU leaders to close their borders without considering the impact on Turkey’s borders with Syria,” said Bill Frelick, HRW’s refugee rights director.



The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, received a letter saying that Kurds fleeing Iraq, Syria and Turkey could face a “very dangerous situation” if they were forced to return to Turkey under the proposed EU deal.

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Tom Brake, wrote to Hammond and the home secretary, Theresa May, saying he feared that Kurds might be forcibly returned to Turkey where they faced persecution.

Brake wrote: “Many Kurds have understandably fled Iraq and Syria as a result of the destruction of communities by Daesh [Islamic State] in the north of Syria and Iraq. The increase in assaults by Turkish forces against the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) has led to more Kurds trying to reach Europe.

“I am concerned that Kurds will potentially be sent back to Turkey as a result of the proposals agreed between the EU and Turkey which will lead to a very dangerous situation for Kurdish people. I would therefore like to know what the government is doing to ensure that Kurds will not be put in danger by being sent back to a hostile Turkey.”

Melanie Ward, from the International Rescue Committee, described the one in, one out policy as unhelpful. “If this policy is designed to incentivise Turkey to stop refugees leaving their shores, it in fact risks doing the opposite,” she said.

“This is not a matter purely of numbers but of humanitarian need and decisions should be made on that basis. This is in no-one’s interests except the smugglers.”

Grandi reminded his audience that the Syrian conflict was entering its sixth year, adding that Syrian refugees were facing increasingly difficult conditions in Jordan and Lebanon: 90% lived below the poverty line as they were unable to work and had run down all their savings.

In a veiled rebuke to the EU, he said Afghans, who many European states do not deem to have legitimate asylum claims, also had urgent protection needs.



According to the UNHCR, 31 out of Afghanistan’s 34 regions saw a surge in people fleeing conflict last year. The number of internally displaced Afghans has risen to a million people, up 78%.

In a speech timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, Grandi said people often did not realise how many women and children were fleeing conflicts around the world.

He said: “In public opinion the image [of a refugee] is often of young single men arriving in Europe to look for work. Today, on International Women’s Day, I wish to report that nearly two thirds are women and children.”



