Syrian child laborer killed in attacks on refugees in Türkiye

On June 30, attacks on Syrian refugees took place in Kayseri, which then spread to many Turkish cities and specifically targeted migrant workers. One working child was killed and at least two children were seriously injured.

On July 2, child migrant workers working as seasonal agricultural workers were attacked in the Serik district of Antalya. Ahmed Hamdan El Naif, a 17-year-old Syrian, was stabbed to death, while 15-year-old Hasan Khalid El Nayif and Bashar Obaid Al-Marai were seriously injured and hospitalized.

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The child laborers, including the victim El Naif, were reportedly unregistered and underpaid migrant workers. They worked in a greenhouse in temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius. When they arrived in the district center, they were unaware of the night raids, where they were attacked in broad daylight by anti-migrant activists.

The organized nature of the provocation against Syrian refugees was demonstrated by the fact that after the attacks began, the identity data of 3.3 million Syrians in Turkey were shared in Telegram groups. The Interior Ministry announced an investigation and confirmed that the data went back to September 2022.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced that 1,065 perpetrators of attempted pogroms had been arrested, 855 of them in Kayseri. Yerlikaya said that 468 of those arrested in Kayseri had previous convictions for 50 different crimes. These crimes include migrant smuggling, assault, looting, theft, sexual abuse, threats and insults, drugs, property damage, fraud and extortion.

The fact that only 28 people were arrested, while hundreds were detained following the incidents, which left one child dead, many more injured and countless homes and businesses destroyed, shows the government’s tolerance of aggression against refugees. The government’s stance, which paves the way for new pogroms, is in stark contrast to the arrest of more than 70 people in Istanbul in recent months while protesting against the closure of Taksim Square for the May Day demonstrations.

The scale and severity of the pogrom-like attacks is forcing migrant workers to choose between fear of attacks and hunger. A worker at a steel door factory in Kayseri told the newspaper Evrensel about the situation of his migrant colleagues: “I have been working with these people for years. I have never noticed anything wrong with them. The people I know are just trying to earn a living. But after these incidents, they can’t even come to work anymore.”

Workers in Gaziantep, where many migrants live, have similar concerns. On the days of the violent attacks, workers’ shuttles were reportedly attacked. BİRTEK-SEN, an independent grassroots union, reported that a shuttle bus carrying its members was intercepted by attackers and that local workers protected their Syrian class brothers and sisters and forced the attackers out of the vehicle.

The ruling class exploits migrant workers, who constitute the weakest part of society and live in fear of being deported at any time, under brutal conditions and low wages.

Muhammet, a Syrian textile worker living in Istanbul, described her dilemma to Evrensel as follows: “The pressure on Syrians has increased over the years, especially since 2017, when the returns began.”

Mohammad explained that if they returned to Syria, their lives would be in danger and they would be unemployed everywhere: “The EU, on the other hand, is not letting us in, its borders are closed because there is an agreement… Our temporary protection cards are not being renewed, even though they have not yet expired. Men in particular are being held outside and sent back.”

The ruling class and the entire political establishment are waging a dirty propaganda campaign against the refugees who are victims of the regime change war that the United States and its allies, including Turkey, started in Syria in 2011.

The Socialist Equality Group wrote in its statement: “The established parties – whether in government or in opposition – have adopted the lies-based program of the far right to divide and confuse the working class. They have made Syrians and other migrants into scapegoats for the rising cost of living, deteriorating living conditions and other social problems caused by the capitalist crisis.”

With official inflation exceeding 70 percent, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government’s tightening of austerity and erosion of real wages have exacerbated poverty among workers and pensioners. This played a major role in the March 31 local elections, in which Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, came second for the first time behind the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

In last year’s presidential election campaign, Kemal Kilicdaroğlu, the candidate of the bourgeois opposition led by the CHP, tried to divert working-class resistance by adopting the anti-refugee program and rhetoric of the far-right Victory Party. In the second round, Kilicdaroğlu formed an alliance with the Victory Party. Erdoğan, on the other hand, who claimed to be a friend of asylum seekers, was supported by Sinan Oğan, the Victory Party’s candidate in the first round, who promised to “send refugees back.”

The hate campaign against refugees is based on traditional right-wing extremist lies. One of them is that asylum seekers are a source of crime. Official data and studies refute this claim.

Enes Ataç, a doctoral student in migration and political sociology at Pennsylvania State University, shared academic articles on X/Twitter in the wake of the anti-immigrant attacks. These included an article in World Development that “presented a fairly detailed analysis that Syrian refugees in Turkey commit crimes much less frequently than the local population,” and an article in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization that showed that “the total number of crimes per capita decreased with the arrival of refugees.”

The ruling class’s attacks on the living conditions of the working class are inseparable from the offensive against democratic rights that it is conducting through the attacks on refugees. The recent provocations show the urgency of the struggle for the unity of all workers on the basis of an international socialist program and organization against the chauvinism and xenophobia that the ruling elite spreads.

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