TATVAN, Turkey — Hundreds of Afghans arrive on a daily basis in the town of Tatvan in Turkey’s southeastern province of Bitlis, making a perilous journey in search of a better and more prosperous life for themselves and their families back home.
"We come here to work. There is war in Afghanistan, unemployment is high, poverty is high. We cannot work and make a living there,” Nurullah Husseini, a refugee from Afghanistan who arrived in Tatvan on Saturday, told Rudaw.
"If there were no war in Afghanistan and we had work, why would we come here? We haven’t taken a shower for a month. We are forced to work," he said.
June 20th is World Refugee Day.
The refugees say their final destination is Turkey's largest metropolitan city of Istanbul.
Afghanistan has a population of about 39 million. Millions of people have fled the country due to civil war and poverty.
According to the United Nations, there are 2.65 million internally displaced people inside Afghanistan while 2.7 million others are scattered around the world.
Refugees from Afghanistan are smuggled into Iran. From there, they trek the route into the town of Tatvan in Bitlis province.
Among the Afghans, there are Pakistani and Bangladeshi refugees as well.
Rudaw's Abdulsalam Akinci on Saturday visited a group of new arrivals who looked exhausted, taking shelter in places that were littered with trash.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of refugees worldwide reached more than 82 million by the end of 2020.
Translation by Zhelwan Zeyad Wali
Video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
