"Don't send refugees back to Turkey!" VluchtelingenWerk Nederland (Dutch Council for Refugees) stated this in early April in an appeal to Prime Minister Mark Rutte and State Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff.

"Again it is seen that Turkey sends Syrians back into the war, and so the planned transfer of refugees from Greece to Turkey must be stopped," VluchtelingenWerk said in response to the unsatisfactory answers Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher gave at a press conference in early April.

Stop returns, start investigations

Rather than sending the refugees back and starting to examine the deal afterwards, the opposite is exactly what should be the plan. This is why VluchtelingenWerk calls on Prime Minister Rutte and State Secretary Dijkhoff to ensure that the expulsions will be stopped.

Only then can the serious findings by Amnesty be examined. If these reports are indeed confirmed, this can only mean an early end to the EU-Turkey Deal.

Turkey is not a safe country

In a first response to the deal between Europe and Turkey, VluchtelingenWerk stated that Turkey is definitely not a safe third country. Turkey is already detaining stopped and returned refugees and depriving them of their refugee status.

It has already been noted that Turkey was sending refugees back to unsafe countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. These returns of refugees to war zones, which now also happens after the agreements have been made, seems to happen on a larger scale than VluchtelingenWerk had previously suspected.