Turkish Coast Guard catches over 55,000 migrants in 2024

Turkish Coast Guard units caught 55,467 irregular migrants in the country's waters in 2024, as they faced perilous conditions on their migration routes.

The month with the highest number of irregular migration incidents was August, with 245 cases, followed by September and November, an official data said.

In their operations on the seas, the Coast Guard teams apprehended 484 migrant smugglers, while some 45 migrants drowned.

European nations have remained a major draw for migrants from African and Asian countries in the past ten years, with Türkiye serving as a transit route for thousands of asylum-seekers trying to cross into Greece from its western coasts.

Some migrants undertake perilous journeys over land or sea with the aid of smugglers, who often abandon them after receiving thousands of dollars per migrant, especially during sea crossings.

Others are apprehended by Turkish security forces before reaching the border into Europe.

While the number of migrants arriving in other countries decreased in 2024, the EU border protection agency Frontex reported a nearly 40 percent increase in arrivals in Greece compared to 2023, with around 37,000 people having arrived in Greece since the start of 2024.

However, nearly 30,000 of these irregular arrivals traveled by boat from Türkiye western coast to the Greek islands in the eastern Aegean, rather than crossing the land border between the two nations.

Athens constructed a 40-kilometer (25-mile) steel barrier along the land border with Türkiye to curb irregular migration, with the construction completed in August 2021.

Both Ankara and international human rights organizations have condemned Greece's illegal actions, asserting that such practices endanger the...