Erdogan’s geopolitical games, false promises enrage migrants

When Sawsan al-Musawa heard last week that President Tayyip Erdogan had opened Turkey's borders for migrants to cross into Europe,the Syrian mother of four left a refugee camp in eastern Turkey and headed west to the Greek border.

Six days later, Musawa and her children, including two sons with cerebral palsy, were camping at a bus station in the border city of Edirne, tired, frustrated, and angry as their dream of a new life in Europe came to an abrupt end at the EU frontier.

"Why did he (Erdogan) do this to us if he knew Greece won't let us cross?" she asked, sitting on a rug near a pile of bags full of clothes and diapers for her sons, aged 13 and 7, who lay on the ground making jittery movements and looking scared.

Thousand of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Africa are camped out along a stretch of the border between Turkey and Greece, two NATO allies whose relations - never easy - have been further strained by the migrant crisis.

Many migrants are confused and unsure what to do

Some like Musawa said they had spent their paltry savings on the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) journey from a refugee camp outside the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep to Edirne in the country's northwest, near to Greece and Bulgaria.

Others started boarding buses to head back to places across Turkey where they had built temporary lives, doing menial jobs.

Men, women and children still holding out hope sat on the banks of the Maritsa river, feeding on biscuits, potato snacks and soft drinks handed out by aid groups and local charities.

Families started bonfires as the sound of crying babies blended with the muezzin's call to prayer blasting from a towering white mosque.

Ankara keeps...

Continue reading on: