KAPIKOY BORDER CROSSING, Turkey — Relatively few Iranians have fled the war in their country so far, but a United Nations warning and migration experts’ accounts suggest that displacement could accelerate quickly if conditions worsen.
At the Kapikoy border crossing in Turkey, hairdresser Merve Pourkaz described deciding to leave after bombs exploded near her home in Golestan, in eastern Iran. Pourkaz, 32, said she traveled nearly 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) to the alpine border crossing in hopes of reaching the Turkish city of Van. While waiting at the crossing, she told The Associated Press, “If they let me, I will stay in Van until the war ends,” and added, “If the war doesn’t end, maybe I’ll go back and die.”
The U.N. refugee agency estimates that 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran started, according to the AP report. Some people are seeking shelter in safer parts of Iran or in nearby countries, while others are returning from abroad and heading toward the fighting to protect their families and homes.
So far, the report said, departures have been limited. The U.N. estimates that only about 1,300 Iranians have fled via Turkey each day since the war started, and on some days more people return to Iran than depart. The AP report said neighbors and Europe are growing increasingly concerned about a potential migration crisis if the war drags on.
Leila Rabetnezhadfard, 45, was in the opposite direction as Pourkaz entered Turkey. The AP report said Rabetnezhadfard had been in Istanbul preparing to marry a German university professor when the fighting began, and she postponed the ceremony and left for home in Shiraz, in southern Iran. Rabetnezhadfard told AP, “How can I feel safe in Istanbul when my family is living in Iran during the war?” and said bringing her family to Istanbul was not an option because her apartment is small, her brother needs medical care, and life there is expensive. “I will not leave Iran until the war ends,” she said.
The U.N. has warned that continued fighting will likely push more Iranians to flee their homes. As in a 12-day conflict last year, many are sheltering in place, the report said, including people without money to flee and people responding to President Donald Trump’s Feb. 28 warning. The AP report quoted Trump as saying, “Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere,” and said the warning has shaped decisions alongside other constraints.
Even where large numbers are not yet fleeing the country, the AP report said some are leaving major cities for the relative safety of the countryside bordering the Caspian Sea north of Tehran, citing the International Organization for Migration. “Movement out of Iran appears limited mainly because people are prioritizing staying with their families, as well as the safety of their families and property, and due to security conditions and logistical constraints,” Salvador Gutierrez, chief of the IOM’s mission in Iran, said in the report.
The report warned that if Iran’s critical infrastructure is destroyed, waves of people could try to cross into neighboring countries including Turkey and Iraq. “If Tehran, a city of 10 million people, doesn’t have water, they’re going to go somewhere,” Alex Vatanka, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said. Iran is already grappling with one of the world’s largest refugee populations, the AP report said, with roughly 2.5 million forcibly displaced people, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Turkey and other neighboring countries are preparing for the possibility of an impact along difficult-to-police borders. The AP report said the borders with Iraq and Turkey stretch roughly 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) through rough alpine terrain, including Kurdish communities. It also said Turkey had used an open-door approach for Syrians during the country’s long civil war but has abandoned that method and instead planned for Iranian refugees to be sheltered in “buffer zones” along the border, or in tent cities or temporary housing inside Turkey, quoting Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci via Hurriyet.
An aid worker quoted in the report said many Iranians likely will not seek refugee status in Turkey because asylum claims might take years to process. “They don’t want to wait in limbo for years for a refugee status they might not get,” Sara Karakoyun, an aid worker at the independent Human Resource Development Foundation near the border, said.
The AP report said Turkey’s defense ministry stated in January that Turkey had hardened its border with Iran by adding 380 kilometers of concrete walls, 203 optical towers and 43 observation posts. Riccardo Gasco of the IstanPol Institute said Turkey will likely send troops to secure its border and tightly control the flow of people into the country while seeking European Union funds to help deal with refugees.
Europe, the report said, is also preparing based on its experience from the Syrian refugee crisis. It said nearly two-thirds of 4.5 million Syrians fleeing that civil war ended up in Turkey, and that Brussels and Ankara forged a migration deal in 2016 in which the EU offered Turkey incentives and up to 6 billion euros ($7.1 billion) in aid for Syrian refugees on its territory in exchange for efforts to stop tens of thousands of migrants from setting out for Greece.
The AP report said the deal is up for renewal this year, while noting that Turkish citizens have soured on Syrian refugees and that anti-immigrant right-wing parties have surged in some European countries. It also said another displacement crisis is already underway closer to Europe, with fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah having displaced more than 800,000 people so far.
“We’ve got a situation (in the Middle East) that could have grave humanitarian consequences right at a time where humanitarian funding has been completely slashed,” Ninette Kelley, chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council, said in the report, pointing to the Trump administration’s gutting of USAID. The report included her question about whether the world is ready for another humanitarian disaster.
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