“We heard that the gates of Europe are open,” says Reza Dowlati, a 40-year-old who emerges as a leader of
the clan.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration last week that Ankara was opening the country’s
borders to Europe set off a scramble by tens of thousands of the millions of Syrian, Afghan, and other
refugees sheltering in Turkey to make a dash for Europe.
But though Turkey’s exits may be open, the European Union’s doors are shut tight. And refugees from war-
ravaged countries such as Syria and Afghanistan and as far away as Somalia and the Kashmir region now
find themselves stuck in perhaps their most helpless positions yet.
Many blew all their meagre savings on bus tickets to get them to the border from deep inside Turkey, with
drivers racking up their prices tenfold. One family even paid smugglers thousands of dollars to get them
across the Syrian border on Friday once they heard of Mr Erdogan’s new policy on television and social
media.
“We heard that the border was open and we came,” says Adnan Mosuli, a 22-year-old from Raqqa, who
arrived at Doryan with his father and siblings. “It took us two days and $4,500 to get across the border.”
Migrants and their children wait in line for food
and water distribution at the port of Mytilene,
on Lesbos (AP)Women and children refugees are especially defenceless. One Turkish couple, spotting the number of small
children in the Dowlati clan, gifted them a couple of tents. Some of the nearby townspeople have welcomed
women to use their bathrooms. But they still sleep outside.
“There are serious protection risks for women and girls being in an unstable open-air environment,” says
Devon Cone, senior advocate at Refugees International. “Even the camps are insecure. What new risks are
they facing sitting there at the border?”
The Dowlati family hired a minibus for around £500 to get them from Turkey’s Black Sea city of Samsun to
the frontier after Mr Erdogan’s announcement.
They knew from the start it was a long shot. But there are few opportunities for them in Turkey, even for
the ones who managed to master the language. There are few jobs, and they pay poorly. Often the
employers would refuse to pay refugees their salaries.
The war in Afghanistan had scattered the Dowlatis across the world, some escaping their native Hazarajat in
the country’s centre for Iran, others to Pakistan, and still others to Kabul, the capital. One brother made it
to Germany, and is hoping to draw the rest there.
It had been a struggle to gather everyone in Samsun, Turkey, and as long as they stayed together as a family