Ghost Ships: Turkey Becomes Springboard for Syrians Heading to Europe

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/turkish-city-becomes-important-hub-for-syrian-refugees-a-1015411.html



Turkey has become a hub for human traffickers, with freighters picking up Syrians in the port city and smuggling them on to Europe. It's a lucrative business built on the hardships of others.

Ghost Ships: Turkey Becomes Springboard for Syrians Heading to Europe
By SPIEGEL Staff
January 28, 2015 – 03:26 PM

The short man told Sherko that he always had to be prepared. That's why Sherko is now sitting on the bed in his fluorescent-lit hotel room in Mersin, a port city on the southern coast of Turkey. He has packed the backpack next to him with the items he needs for his trip to freedom: 10 Snickers bars, canned tuna fish, perfume, a razor, dried figs, dental floss and a sponge for cleaning his shoes.

Sherko, 27, is from Damascus. He has a thin face, black hair and a beard. He has just finished law school, he likes singing Arab songs and he knows how to make the caps on beer bottles fly through the air when he opens them. He and 13 friends from the same neighborhood in Damascus have come to Mersin together. They include opticians, computer scientists, students and a man who works at a car rental agency. The youngest is 18 and the eldest is 45. Most are Syrian Kurds, and they have all fled to avoid military service.

Sherko is arranging his things in his backpack when the mobile phone of one of his friends rings. It's the short man who was hired to smuggle them out of Damascus so that they could start new lives elsewhere. They don't know his name, so they just call him the short man. "It's time to go," the man says. "We're going out to the ship." Sherko grabs the backpack, puts on his cap, throws his prayer chain around his neck and runs off with the others.

The freighter, which has been anchored a few nautical miles off Mersin for the last five days and is scheduled to continue sailing to Italy, will only wait for them one more night. This evening is their last chance. If they don't reach the ship, because of bad weather or coast guard patrols, they will have to wait weeks before the next ship arrives.