Hundreds of refugees fear they are to be deported back to Syria after their boat was intercepted by the Turkish coastguard.

Some 22 people are believed to have drowned as the boat sank on Tuesday, while hundreds more were ferried to Turkey, where they claim to have been threatened with deportation. The Turkish government denies the claim.



Attempting to reach the Greek island of Kos, the wooden boat of around 250 Syrians and Iraqis was intercepted a few miles from the coast of Turkey by Turkish coastguards, who circled it and fired warning shots. The boat subsequently sank after water started seeping into the hold, and the 211 survivors were taken to a detention centre in Düziçi, southern Turkey.

In voice messages sent from the camp to the Guardian, survivors say that some of the Syrian detainees have been flown to Lebanon, if they have the money to pay for the airfare. A spokesman for the Turkish prime minister’s office categorically denied that any Syrian would be returned to Syria. But the refugees nevertheless claim that local officials have threatened that those who lack the funds for an airfare will be deported back to the Bab el-Hawa border crossing into Syria.

One female inmate, who has not been identified for her protection, said she feared being killed if this happened. “They are threatening us that Syrians will be deported to Syria, Iraqis to Iraq,” she said. “If they send us back to Syria we will die.”

She added: “We are being deported at our cost – whoever doesn’t have the money to go to Beirut airport, they send him to Bab al-Hawa. I don’t know what to say.”

The Turkish interior ministry had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication. But a spokesman for the Turkish prime minister’s office strongly rejected the claims. “All refugees are interviewed by [the UN refugee agency], who make sure that they will not be returned to Syria,” he said. “In general, we have a no-returns policy, so I don’t know where that claim comes from.”

The refugees’ detention is the latest episode in a traumatic week for the group, whose boat started sinking shortly after being stopped by coastguards at around 5.30am on Tuesday. An Iraqi survivor said: “The families at the bottom level said there was water leaking, and when I went down I saw the water leaking on the floor.”

The Iraqi felt the coastguards could have reacted sooner. “Most of the drowned people were from the bottom level and the rescue was too late,” he said.

Footage filmed by Sky News of a separate trip shows Turkish coastguards firing warning shots in the air and attempting to block the passage of migrant boats as they approach the boundary between Greek and Turkish waters.

The refugees’ detention came as it emerged 13 more people had drowned off the coast of Turkey when their dinghy collided with a ferry. Eight people were rescued, the Turkish coastguard said, after they collided with a boat travelling from the port of Çanakkale to the Greek island of Lesbos.

The incident is the latest of an increasing number of disasters in the Aegean Sea. The number of deaths between Greece and Turkey is far lower than the equivalent figure on the Libya-Italy migration route. But the rate of incidents is on the rise, with at least 78 feared dead in five separate incidents in the past week, according to information collated by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Refugees interviewed by the Guardian along the migrant trail this week warned that the current level of boat trips between Turkey and Greece was likely to remain high for the next month, despite the prospect of worsening conditions at sea. Zayn Sabsabi, a 17-year-old Syrian student waiting at the border between Croatia and Slovenia said: “I told my cousin not to come because the way is now blocked. But he said: ‘I just want to leave this war.’ So people will keep coming.”

Another Syrian who arrived in Greece last week, 31-year-old communications engineer Nowar el-Debiat, said: “The level will be lower because the sea is not good, and maybe the fact that Hungary has closed its borders will put people off. But after five years of war in my country, people cannot bear the situation and so those who used to not think of emigration are now thinking about it. So in October the migration will continue.”

The IOM fears this will in turn lead to more tragedies. The group’s spokesman, Leonard Doyle, said on Saturday: “We are anticipating that there are going to be a lot more deaths. We are already getting eight a day.”

Additional reporting: Manu Abdo

• This article was amended on 21 September 2015 to remove the name of the spokesman for the Turkish prime minister’s office, in agreement with the reporter.