Turkey Wages Uphill Battle to Stop Migrant Smugglers on Aegean Sea ‘We can’t build a wall on the waters,’ says Turkish coast guard Capt. Murat Yilmazarslan By Ayla Albayrak
http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-wages-uphill-battle-to-stop-migrant-smugglers-on-aegean-sea-1457303508
CESME, Turkey—On a mild winter day last week, Capt. Murat Yilmazarslan and his crew bore down on a dinghy packed with people making a dash across the Aegean Sea—a cheerless victory in the Turkish coast guard’s uphill battle to stop smugglers ferrying migrants to Europe’s door.
Soon, their ship—the Umut, or Hope—and two patrol boats had intercepted the dinghy, filled with dozens of Afghans and others in neon orange life jackets, as a helicopter hovered overhead. The migrants, some who wept as they were ordered to board the Hope, gave up without a fight.
It isn’t always so. Caught within sight of their goal, refugees have held babies above the water and threatened to drop them into the sea if they aren’t allowed to proceed to Greece, coast guard officials say. On occasion, intercepted migrants have held knives to their throats and threatened to kill themselves. In those cases, the officials say they alert the Greek coast guard and let the people continue their voyage.
“We have such a big weight on our shoulders,” Capt. Yilmazarslan said the next day in the Turkish port of Cesme. “Turkey is like a sponge that has been fully soaked, and we shouldn’t be left alone to deal with this refugee flow.”
The Turkish captain and his crew are at the front line of an international effort to stop the people smuggling and defuse the pressure on countries in Europe that say they are reaching, or have exceeded, their ability to take in more migrants from the east. A NATO fleet of five ships has been deployed to help overwhelmed coast guard officials like Capt. Yilmazarslan track and deter the smuggling boats, but the mission has been slowed by disagreement between Greece and Turkey over the specifics for the operation. CONTINUE AT SITE
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