The human rights watchdog spoke with dozens of refugees who were illegally removed from Turkey and sent back to Syria without a so-called "safe zone" in place. Turkey claims they went back willingly.
"Turkey's claim that refugees from Syria are choosing to walk straight back into the conflict is dangerous and dishonest," said Anna Shea, researcher on Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International. "Rather, our research shows that people are being tricked or forced into returning."
Dozens of refugees told the organization that the Turkish police beat and threatened them into signing documents saying they were willingly returning to Syria. Based on interviews conducted between July and October this year, researchers estimate that hundreds of people have been sent back unlawfully and against their will.
Records from the Turkish authorities claim that 315,000 people have returned to Syria voluntarily. Turkey has taken in some 3.6 million Syrians in the past eight years, the report said.
Syrian civilians bear the brunt of Turkey's offensive
Those displaced by the fighting in northeast Syria are trying to survive in abandoned schools and houses. International NGOs have left and people queue for bread for hours. The few remaining doctors are overwhelmed.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
A first stop
UN sources say over 200,000 people have been internally displaced in Syria's northeast since Turkey launched its offensive on October 9. So far, the border town of Ras al-Ayn has paid the highest toll in the wake of a joint attack by Turkish militias and airstrikes. The city will remain under Turkish control following a deal struck in Sochi between Russia and Turkey.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
'We've lost everything'
A majority of those who have fled are reportedly Kurds. Those civilians remaining in the city are mostly Arabs who are still in touch by phone with their former neighbors. "They told me yesterday that the Islamists were looting our house. We've lost everything," this man told DW.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
Every crumb helps
The regime forces are stationed just a few kilometers away from Tal Tamr. As a result international NGOs formerly based in the area have fled over the past few days. Internally displaced people (IDPs) from Ras al-Ayn and the neighboring villages rely on the work of local NGOs who are struggling to cope with the crisis.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
Not enough to go around
Apart from Tal Tamr, other villages in the vicinity are also hosting hundreds of displaced people who rely on local NGOs. "They're settling in empty villages, many of them too close to other locations controlled by either the Turkish-backed militias or 'Islamic State' sleeper cells," Hassan Bashir, a local NGO coordinator, told DW.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
Food, glorious food
This Arab IDP from Ras al-Ayn has four wives but will struggle to get enough to feed all their children as local NGOs say they can only allocate a single food ration per family. "It's not their fault, they're just children," he told DW, after being given a single bag of food rations.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
School's out — forever?
Schools have remained shut across Syria's northeast since the beginning of the offensive and several of them are now hosting IDPs from Ras al-Ayn. Those who can afford it will move to cities like Al-Hasakah, around 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the south, but others will have to cope with the dire conditions in a border city that faces further attacks from the north.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
The closest thing to home
50 Kurdish families from Ras al-Ayn are now living in this abandoned school in Tal Tamr lacking both water and electricity. As the sanitary conditions deteriorate, local doctors and the hospital in Tal Tamr fear an outbreak of cholera and other diseases. "If we continue like this we'll have to get set for a huge humanitarian crisis," a local doctor told DW.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
Sick and stranded
Although the hospital in Tal Tamr is treating the wounded, it cannot help those suffering from diseases such as cancer.Two IDPs told DW that they were supposed to receive chemotherapy in Damascus before the offensive started, but that the current security situation makes it impossible for them to get there.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
A different type of playground
The Christian village of Tell Nasri on the outskirts of Tal Tamr had remained empty since IS took over the area. The majority of its former inhabitants left during the IS siege when the militants destroyed the churches with explosives before the fall of the Caliphate. With nowhere else to go, several IDP families from Ras al-Ayn are now settling in Tell Nasri.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
Living on a prayer
These boys are among dozens stranded in Tell Nasri but the dire living conditions are the least of their problems. Just before this picture was taken, settlers told DW that they had been attacked from a neighboring village reportedly in the hands of Islamists. "They started shooting at us and we engaged [with them] for over an hour," a fighter with the Syrian Democratic Forces told DW.
Image: DW/K. Zurutuza
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Threats and coercion
It is currently illegal to deport people to Syria due to the risk of exposure to human rights violations.
While some were beaten or threatened with violence or prison, the police also deceived people to get them to sign "voluntary return" statements.
Refugees were told the documents they were signing were registrations, receipts, or even forms that said they wished to stay in Turkey. Others were told, falsely, that they were not properly registered in that province of Turkey and must therefore return to Syria.
Routine encounters with the police or migration officials, like renewing documents or showing identification on the street, could result in forced deportation to a war zone, the report says.
Kristian Brakel, the director of Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation in Istanbul, told DW in September that there were credible reports from Syrians in Turkey who had registered for an asylum extension at police stations, only to be forced to sign a letter confirming their "voluntary departure" from the country.
Brakel added that the Turkish authorities threatened violence to make it clear that no appeals would be accepted.
"Of course, we can no longer talk about these departures as if they were voluntary," said Brakel.
Pre-'Safe Zone'
Amnesty International was able to verify 20 cases of forced deportations. In all cases, the victims were sent over the border in a bus filled with dozens of people with their hands bound.
The majority of those deported seem to be men, though the organization also uncovered cases of teenagers and families with small children being sent back.
"It is chilling that Turkey's deal with Russia this week agrees to the 'safe and voluntary return' of refugees to a yet to-be-established 'safe zone.' Returns until now have been anything but safe and voluntary — and now millions more refugees from Syria are at risk," said Shea.
Syrian Kurds weigh few options as Turkey invades
People's lives have been upended by the Turkish offensive in northern Syria. Relief is mixed with worry that the Syrian regime is back as a force. Families are in flight, and the number of dead is rising in the region.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Kurdish families in search of safety
According to UN sources almost 200,000 people have become IDPs (internally displaced people) since Turkey launched an attack on Kurdish-controlled territories on October 9. Many Kurds have reportedly tried to cross the border to seek shelter in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, but only those who can produce an Iraqi-Kurdish resident card are allowed to cross.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Men alone
Many villages in Syria's northeast have nearly emptied of people over the last week. Women and children in towns close Turkey have been heading further inland, to Hassakeh, leaving the border region inhabited almost only by men. "Conditions are deteriorating rapidly in Hassakeh due to the massive flux of people, so we decided to stay," Suna, a mother of three children told DW.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Life has gone elsewhere
The once lively bazaar in Amuda has turned into a gloomy place where just a few men gather. Many shops have folded since the Turkish invasion began, and those which remain open sell products at hardly affordable prizes due to the collapse of the Syrian currency. Shelling form the other side of the frontier usually starts at dawn, so those who remain in the town hardly venture outside at night.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Back in town
Coexistence between the Syrian Kurdish administration and President Bashar Assad's regime in Qamishli, the main city in the country's northeast, has been tense since the Syrian civil war started in 2011. The recent deal between the two sides involves a redeployment of Syrian troops along the Turkish border. It is unclear who will be in control of the region in the short term.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Fighting on two fronts
While Kurdish combat units fight against the Turkish army and Ankara-backed militants, it's still unclear what the Syrian Kurdish fighters' status will be since reaching out to Assad for support. "We will keep controlling the area as we've done until today, there will be no substantial changes other than a joint command in certain border areas," officials told DW.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Uncertainty reigns
Syrian Kurds feel betrayed since the US president decided to pull out all remaining troops. Many told DW they felt relief that the Kurdish fighters had struck a deal with the Syrian regime to control the border areas as it could prevent Turkey from attacking their villages. "We know what Trump did to us, but we still know nothing about Putin's intentions," said Massud, a barbershop customer.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
'I would rather not speak'
After decades of brutal repression under the Assads, many residents in Derik refused to comment on the possible consequences of the regime's comeback to an area that has enjoyed de facto self-rule for several years. "The whole country was controlled by the secret services back then, and it may happen again soon, so no one will dare to talk to you about it," one person said.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Five more lost
All over Syria's northeast residents have had to deal corpses arriving daily from the frontlines. Turkish air strikes have hit both military targets and civilians so that many hospitals caring for wounded fighters, such as the one in Derik, have been evacuated to avoid further casualties.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Deaths mount
The Syrian Kurds claim to have lost around 11,000 people in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. Although IS has lost control over territory of any significant size, the killing continues. Dozens of civilians and hundreds of fighters have reportedly been killed since Turkey launched its attack on Syria's northeast.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
Left on their own
The Kurds in Syria opted to side neither with the regime nor the opposition after the civil war broke out in 2011. Now they stand alone, besieged and with no one to back them since their American allies withdrew.
Image: Karlos Zurutuza
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Turkey turns its back
If the expert assessments of Turkey forcing refugee deportations are confirmed, it would indicate a reversal of previous policy.
Since the Syrian civil war started in 2011, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish politicians have continually emphasized Turkey's readiness to help refugees.
Fatma Sahin, the mayor of the Gaziantep, a Turkish city near the Syrian border, told DW in 2017 that for years local authorities had been trying to help Syrians in need.
"This is a tradition here, it is our culture. When your neighbor is suffering from hunger, then you should try to help," said Sahin, a member of Erdogan's ruling AK party.
"I think that what we've done has made us a model for the world. We have become an example of morality for the world," she said.
International obligation
The latest Amnesty report seems to suggest that those humanitarian concerns have fallen by the wayside. But Turkey is not solely to blame, says Anna Shea.
"The European Union and the rest of the international community, instead of devoting their energies to keeping people seeking asylum from their territories, should dramatically increase resettlement commitments for Syrian refugees from Turkey," she urged.
