Reports | 25 05 2020
Turkey reinforced the output of its national income, due to the massive asylum wave to Europe across Turkey, having become the first aisle to cross for the Syrian refugees and others, who arrive in it, to complete their journey illegally through the sea to Greece via the "Aegean Sea", and then to EU countries.
Refugees who seek to reach Europe, are forced to pay large sums of money in Turkey, until they arrive in Greece, including travel, accommodation and mobility and shipping costs via the rubber boats in addition to communications and other side costs, according to "Rozana”.
Qasim Yahiya paid 7,500 $ until he reached Greece with his wife and three children, from Damascus, he said: "It is true that I crossed as a refugee, but the living expenses in Turkey was tourist, especially in the northern cities where the price of everything is so expensive."
How much does the trip cost?
Amid complete absence of the statistics on the amounts paid by the migrant in Turkey, until he arrives in Greece, "Rozana" made an economic calculation for the average of these expenses, after extensive interviews with refugees arrived in the European territories.
Zain al Abidin, was a civil engineering student in Damascus, he left his studies in the third year, and decided to go to Germany last fall.
"The total cost until I reached the island of Kos is 1600 dollars," says Zain, he adds: "I paid $ 200 to get from Beirut to Adana Airport, and 30 $ from Adana to Izmir, and movements within Izmir, in addition to 1100 $ for the Office of the mediator with the smuggler who will take me to Greece, and 40 $ the price of the life jacket. "
Completing his explanation of the expenses details: "150 $ was the cost of staying for four days in one of the popular hotels in Izmir, and 5 $ the price of protective bags to keep the documentary and mobile phone dry, and 15 $ the price of the Turkish line to call the coastguard in case of any emergency, and about 60 $ the price of food and drink during my stay in Izmir."
Long stays
The amount paid by Zain is little because his journey did not face any risks, unlike the rest of the many other trips, requiring extended stay in Turkey, up to a month in some cases.
Zain continues: "I know people who have been forced to stay in hotels in Izmir for more than 25 days until their journey facilitated, because the factors of delaying the trip are many, most notably the Coast Guard patrols and the state of the wind and the sea."
What Zain talked about, was faced by "Qutaiba,", a Syrian journalist, who chose to ride the sea and go to Europe, after he had worked in Lebanon, and left because of the pressures of living and lack of jobs.
"The Coast Guard Command get us back 6 times, each time we were forced to re-wait for at least a week," says Qutaiba, and adds: "I paid every penny I have for this trip, amounting to 2600 $, before arriving in Greece, what made me call my family in Aleppo to send me additional funds."
The expenses paid by the refugees in Turkey during their journey, differ between one person to another, some immigrants sleep in the gardens during the summer in order to save the price of the hotel, but that does not apply to other refugees, particularly families.
Turkey profited 2.4 billion $ of refugees crossing
So far the European Union did not announce official statistics on the number of refugees arriving to Europe via Turkey, but following the weekly and monthly statistics line and during the last year, in addition to the informal statistics published by the European magazines, shows that the refugees number in Europe is about two million refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Africa.
On the contrary of all the European countries, Germany is the only country which issued the precise statistics for the number of refugees, as sources in the government coalition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, revealed that "Germany registered about 1.09 million asylum seekers in 2015," thus was confirmed by the German media reports.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Syrians who fled to Europe between 2011-2015, exceeded 400 thousand.
If we adopted the sum paid by Zain al Abidin as an average cost in Turkey until he reached Greece, so Turkey would be benefited 2.4 Billion dollars on average, although this number does not consider to be official, but it was concluded after the assumption that 75% of refugees in Europe (1.5 million) arrived in it via Turkey, every single one of them to paid 1600 $ in Turkey, so the total output on the Turkish lands would be 2.4 billion $, in the second half of 2014 and during 2015.
1.8 $ billion for the Turkish smugglers
Smugglers and brokers of all nationalities including the Syrian and Iraqis, are working in the field of human trafficking to Greece, but they're just employees of a constant or intermittent salary in favor of the smugglers, who are mostly Turkish as "Rozana" spotted, where they own the "point" (starting center hidden from the Turkish coast), in addition to the rubber boat and its engine and driver.
There are two major ways to arrive in Greece, the " rubber minnows" which conducted ranging between 800 - 1200 dollars, the tourist yacht, which will be conducted by 1,200 $ in winter and 1600 $ in the summer.
If we assume that the average fare per refugee transfer of 1,200 $, the pockets of smugglers of human beings and the Turks alone came to $ 1.8 billion, during the period between the summer of 2014, until the end of 2015.