Refugee Protection in Turkey during the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic

ADMIGOV Paper 2020

ADMIGOV WP4 Turkey Interim Report adopts a bottom-up approach in the study of protection that transcends the legal perspective, and sheds light on the experiences of persons in need of protection and humanitarian actors in formal and informal institutions in Turkey. The interim report is structured on the basis of three key areas in protection: legal status, access to healthcare and access to shelter. The report particularly covers the period between February and June 2020 at the time when thousands of people were stuck at the Greek-Turkish border and subsequently the novel COVID-19 pandemic started to drastically influence the migrant and refugee communities in need to protection. The case of Turkey, hosting the world’s largest refugee population, is analyzed by taking the differentiated legal statuses of migrant and refugee populations into consideration.