The Defiance Podcast

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Europe's refugee crisis - At Turkey's Border with Greece

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In my third film, I travel to the North of Turkey to witness the refugee crisis at the border with Greece.

In late February, Russian and Syrian forces continued their bombing campaign in Idlib. The UN reported that the escalation in violence had forced 1 million people to flee north to the Turkish border. A second crisis was building in Norther Turkey as President Erdoğan had opened the border with Greece for migrants and refugees.

To understand the crisis we need to go back to 2014 when millions of refugees from war-torn Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and migrants from across the Middle East and Africa poured into Europe across Turkey's land and sea borders. To stem the crisis, the EU offered Turkey a $5 billion aid package including resources to build refugee camps along the Syrian border.

An estimated 3.6 million Syrian refugees and 400,000 migrants from other countries are now in Turkey. Erdoğan says the EU never fully funded the deal, even cutting back $1 billion in late 2019. When Russian and Syrian forces stepped up attacks on the opposition-held Idlib, 900,000 more Syrian refugees fled for Turkey.