With mouths sewn shut, Afghan refugees keep protesting Ankara, UNHCR

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Afghan refugees in Turkey have entered their seventh week of protests, demanding equal and fair treatment in their application procedure, as they struggle to make their voices heard amid indifference and growing pressure from authorities.

Some 100 Afghans – half of them women and children – are camping day and night in front of the headquarters of the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in Ankara, braving threats from the police, including six refugees who have been engaged in a hunger strike for one week, sewing their mouths and refusing water, as well as food. 

One of the Afghan protesters, Farzad Shafahi, said U.N. officials have suspended all their asylum applications on the grounds that third-countries did not want to accept refugees from Afghanistan. 

“They told us that even if we die, nothing is going to change. And they would particularly not do anything as long as we continue our hunger strike; that it will be allowing a gap of authority and everybody would start to do the same. So we asked, ‘If we leave tonight, would you answer our plea?’ They didn’t respond,” Shafahi told Hürriyet Daily News.

Shafahi, 24, has been waiting for over two years for an answer to his application, but says there are Afghan refugees who have waited for five and even eight years – while the procedure only takes an average of a year for other asylum-seekers.

“The last time I called...