Hundreds of migrants walked through northwest Turkey toward its borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday, Turkish media reported, after a senior
official said Ankara will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe.
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On Thursday, Turkey said 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Syrian government forces in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region.
The official subsequently told Reuters Turkish police, coastguard and border security officials had been ordered to stand down on refugees’ land and sea
crossings towards Europe in anticipation of the imminent arrival of refugees from Idlib.
Demiroren news agency said there were around 300 migrants, including women and children, in the group which began heading towards the borders
between the two EU countries and Turkey’s Edirne province at around midnight.
“Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, and Moroccans were among those in the group,’’ it said.
It said migrants had also gathered on the western Turkish coastal district of Ayvacik in Canakkale province with the aim of traveling by boat to Greece’s
Lesbos Island.
Reuters could not independently confirm who the people were or where they were headed.
Video footage of the migrants broadcast by pro-government Turkish television channels could also not immediately be verified.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to open the gates for migrants to travel to Europe.
If it did so, it would reverse a pledge Turkey made to the EU in 2016 and could draw Western powers into the standoff over Idlib.
One million civilians have been displaced in Syria near the Turkish border since December as Russian-backed Syrian government forces seized territory
from Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the nine-year war.
Turkish broadcaster NTV showed scores of people walking through fields wearing backpacks and said the refugees had tried to cross the Kapikule border into
Bulgaria, however, was not allowed through.
It said the same group of migrants had then walked through fields to reach the Pazarkule border crossing into Greece; however, it was unclear what happened
to them thereafter.