Illegal immigrants protest in Turkey
Several dozen illegal immigrants yesterday protested against their
detention conditions in a state-run centre in Istanbul, breaking windows
and throwing burning blankets out onto the street.
"We are here for one year and two months. They give us food only once
a day and don't give us any medicine. ... They treat us like animals,"
one of the immigrants, who said he was a Tamil from Sri Lanka, told an
Agence France-Presse correspondent from a window.
Several other immigrants from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle
East also criticized insufficient food supplies and medical treatment.
The center in Kumkapi, on Istanbul's European side, hosts between 600
and 800 immigrants arrested in Turkey while trying to cross into Europe
and awaiting deportation, police sources told AFP.
There was no indication that police were preparing to intervene as
the situation was returning to normal.
Turkey lies on a major people-smuggling route from Asia to western
Europe and illegal migrants are detained on an almost daily basis.
In June, a Somali man died of a gunshot wound and four people, among
them two police officers, were injured during a riot at a center for
illegal immigrants in the northwestern province of Kirklareli, near the
border with Bulgaria
- AFP
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