Turkey-based smugglers helping to facilitate Europe’s biggest mass migration since the second world war fear that stormier conditions in the eastern Mediterranean will force them to suspend the majority of their operations in the coming weeks, raising the possibility of a significant drop in the flow of refugees to Europe during the winter.



As European leaders gathering hundreds of miles away in Brussels called for fiercer protection of the Greek coastline, smugglers in Turkey said it was not the threat of European navies that concerned them – but the weather.

People smuggling in the waters between Turkey and Greece usually dwindles once autumn begins, when stormier weather limits the extent to which smugglers can function at sea. But this year the number of people being smuggled to Greece has increased twelve-fold. This has prompted European diplomats to privately speculate that the unprecedented demand will encourage smugglers to maintain an abnormally high level of trips to the Greek islands even during the dangerous winter months.

But this week the smugglers themselves predicted the flow would noticeably fall. In conversations with the Guardian in Izmir and Istanbul, seven Turkey-based smugglers separately claimed that, while operations will not stop altogether, the number of people being smuggled across the Aegean will significantly drop from mid-October onwards.

They predicted a small surge after Eid al-Adha, an Islamic festival that began on Thursday, after which several thousand refugees stuck near the Syrian border would gradually make their way to the Turkish coast. But they expected this would be followed roughly a fortnight later by a decline that would continue for the duration of the winter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A hotel in Izmir earlier this month. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

In comments echoed by every interviewee, Muhammad, a Syrian broker in Izmir, the main smuggling hub on the Turkish coast, said: “Ninety per cent of the crossings will stop in November. Because of the weather, the level will be much lower.”

Three smugglers said, as the weather worsens, smugglers would phase out use of the inflatable boats that have become ubiquitous in coverage of the refugee crisis, and which are usually driven by the refugees themselves. Instead, smugglers said they would use clapped-out wooden pleasure boats that carried four times as many people, but which would set off far less frequently, and could be returned to Turkey once their passengers disembarked in Greece.

Mohamad said his own network’s operations would drop from three a night to one a week. “After Eid we expect the numbers to increase again – but then after another two weeks that’ll be it,” said Mohamad, who asked for most details about his identity to be withheld from publication. “If people haven’t got the money to travel within those two weeks, then most of them will stay for another six months.”

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Visitors to central Izmir may be surprised by such a prediction, so prevalent is the smuggling trade in the streets surrounding Basmane Square, the area where most Syrians head to first. On the busy shopping street where Mohamad holds court, several clothes retailers have swapped most of their stock for lifejackets, and even some kebab shops and hardware stores sell them as a sideline. “Want a lifejacket?” a shop assistant asked passers-by. “Original Yamaha, come in and try one.”

Up the road, smugglers openly discuss deals in the street before taking refugees to local hotels, some of which the smugglers say they’ve block-booked for the summer. But strolling around the neighbourhood with the Guardian, a second smuggler nicknamed Abu Salim said that you could already see signs of a slowdown. “A month ago people were sleeping in these streets, in the parks, and there wasn’t a spare hotel room in the city,” Abu Salim said. “But many people have now left. If there are passengers we will send them, whatever the time of year. But we assume the number will decrease.”

A third smuggler, nicknamed Abu Haitham, said that the number of crossings would fall even if Syrians remain desperate to leave, because of the way the smuggling business model changes in winter. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle, Abu Haitham said. Since bad weather inevitably made it harder to launch boats, the number of trips would fall, meaning smugglers would have to charge higher prices to ensure a good profit. This price hike would in turn deter more refugees, meaning smugglers would have to wait for even longer to gather enough people for a trip – a delay that again increases the cost of the trip, and decreases the flow.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lifejackets and dinghies at a local dump in Lesbos, Greece. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

The intent of refugees is impossible to gauge, and among the 12 million Syrians who have fled their homes, there are those who will try to reach Europe whatever the season. But several said that friends still stuck in the Middle East were increasingly open to waiting until next spring to travel, rather than risk the autumn sea crossing and then an icy trek through the Balkans. Abu Sima, a 43-year-old salesman who would attempt to leave Izmir for Greece in the coming days, said his brother-in-law’s family already had the money to travel. But they had chosen to wait till next summer to ensure a safer passage.

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“I also have three other relatives who are waiting in Lebanon with their families, trying to get enough money to come,” said Abu Sima. “But if it doesn’t come within two weeks, then they will wait till next June because the weather will be much better then. If I hadn’t got the money when I did, I would also have waited because the water is about to get a lot more difficult.”

But even if there is a sharp decline over the winter, it remains to be seen whether life will return to normal on the Greek islands where thousands of refugees have shared the beaches with western tourists – or further north in the Balkans, where local politicians do not expect much respite for the foreseeable future. Even if the flow drops from the current rate of several thousand a day to a few hundred, the rate would rival the peak periods of 2014.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Refugees arrive on Lesbos by boat from Turkey on Thursday. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Getty Images

A hiatus in the sea route might also cause a spike on the land route. Four smugglers said they could still help refugees cross the river that lies between eastern Greece and western Turkey, or bribe Greek and Turkish officials to let car loads of refugees through the formal border crossing. “You get to the border, then you change into a second vehicle, get over the border, and then go back to the first car,” said Abu Haitham. “There’s no risk of being arrested because it’s all being paid for.”

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At present, the two methods are regarded as niche pursuits – the latter for only the richest refugees, the former for people without children. But if the sea route largely shuts down for the winter, it is likely that they will appeal to more people.

Migration experts also warn Europe should be prepared for new and unexpected means of reaching the continent. Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), cites last winter’s “ghost ships” as a good example: in an unprecedented tactic in January, Turkish smugglers suddenly sent a series of crewless cargo ships full of migrants to Italy, rather than Greece, taking the Italians by surprise. “Last year we thought numbers were tapering down,” said Doyle. “And then suddenly we woke up on New Year’s Day to find several ghost ships ready to crash into Italy.”

There is another unknown factor: the Turkish government. For most of the summer, up to 100 boats have left the Turkish shoreline every night, carrying up to 5,000 refugees. It is an vast operation to which Turkish authorities turn a blind eye: in a telling illustration of their permissiveness, one of Izmir’s main refugee-gathering points lies just across the road from the city’s security directorate. Even the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has implied his government could do more to curb the phenomenon. This week, he wrote to European leaders to say Turkey could cooperate on the migration crisis, but only if Europe first fell into line with Turkey’s strategy for Syria itself.

Until then, refugees will be able to leave from Turkish shores with relative ease, albeit in lower numbers over the winter. And, as the stormy weather worsens, more of them may drown – a likelihood that some smugglers acknowledge with a shrug. “It’s not our fault – it’s fate,” said Mohamad, sipping tea in Izmir’s smuggling quarter. “It’s what God decides. Only God knows who will make it and who won’t.”

Additional reporting: Mowaffaq Safadi and Abdulsalam Dallal