City provides refugees short path to Europe
BODRUM, Turkey — Suddenly, almost silently, a group of young men carrying a small plastic dinghy emerges from the darkness, dashes across a road and a dirty strip of sand and plunges into the crystal-clear waters of the Aegean Sea.
With the lights of the Greek island of Kos twinkling through the darkness — beacons of hope for a new and better life — another group of refugees has set off to make a risky — but less risky than most — sea crossing and apply for asylum in Europe.
The city of Bodrum, a magnet for wealthy tourists from Turkey and around the world, is these days drawing plenty of other visitors — refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and seeking a better life in Europe, a continent so close they can almost reach out and touch it from the Bodrum peninsula’s many beaches. At its closest point, Kos is only 2.5 miles from Turkey.
Refugees, mostly from Syria, but also from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and African nations often try to cross from the secluded beaches of Bodrum peninsula in groups upward of eight people in inflatable plastic boats meant for a maximum of four, powered by tiny electric outboard motors and plastic paddles.
A children’s playground a couple of blocks away from busy tourist shopping streets has become a makeshift staging post for refugees waiting to be smuggled. Nearby, a small store that sells tourist trinkets and cigarettes now has a new line of products — red and orange life preservers bought by refugees — those who can afford them — to wear on their crossings.
“This is the new reality,” says a store worker who refused to give his name.
A Turkish government official said that the human smugglers have turned to the Aegean in the past year using inflatable boats he called Zodiacs.
That quick crossing is easier and safer than longer crossings organized from North African nations like Libya to Italy.
Underscoring the risks, at least 40 refugees died Saturday in the hold of an overcrowded smuggling boat in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya, apparently killed by fuel fumes.
The number of people trying to reach Europe by sea is on track to hit a record this year, according to Geneva’s International Organization for Migration. Financially struggling Greece has reported 134,988 arrivals from Turkey this year, it said, while Italy recorded 93,540 newcomers through July.