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Rights group: EU should ‘rethink’ Turkey refugee deal

FILE - This is a Wednesday, March 16, 2016 file photo of Syrian refugee Abdullah Koca, 43, who fled Syria four-years ago and had been living at a refugee camp for Syrian refugees in Islahiye, Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey, holds his six-month-old son Ibrahim and his daughter Hadiyeh, 6, as they check the family pet bird suspended in a cage at the barbed-wired fence of the camp. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials plan to travel close to Turkey’s border with Syria in hopes of promoting a troubled month-old agreement to manage a refugee crisis that has left hundreds of thousands stranded on the migrant trail to Europe. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File) FILE - This is a Wednesday, March 16, 2016 file photo of Syrian refugee Abdullah Koca, 43, who fled Syria four-years ago and had been living at a refugee camp for Syrian refugees in Islahiye, Gaziantep province, southeastern Turkey, holds his six-month-old son Ibrahim and his daughter Hadiyeh, 6, as they check the family pet bird suspended in a cage at the barbed-wired fence of the camp. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials plan to travel close to Turkey’s border with Syria in hopes of promoting a troubled month-old agreement to manage a refugee crisis that has left hundreds of thousands stranded on the migrant trail to Europe. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

By Associated Press April 23, 2016 1 min read

GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) – A human rights group says German Chancellor Angela Merkel and top European Union officials should rethink the EU’s refugee deal with Turkey, as they travel to the Syrian border to promote the troubled agreement.

Saturday’s trip to the Turkish border city of Gaziantep, including a refugee camp, comes amid questions over the legality of the March 20 EU-Turkey deal to deport migrants who do not qualify for asylum in Greece back to Turkey.

Human Right Watch acting director Judith Sunderland says instead of touring a “sanitized” refugee camp, the EU leaders should focus on the tens of thousands of Syrians blocked at the border. She also urged them to visit a detention center for migrants “abusively deported from Greece.”

Sunderland says “that should make them rethink the flawed EU-Turkey deal.”