A 4-year-old Yazidi boy with severe epilepsy is being held with his mother and sibling at a deportation center in İzmir, where his medication has run out and the family has faced difficulties obtaining a new supply, the Mezopotamya news agency (MA) reported.
Alveer Rasho was traveling with his parents when they were detained in İzmir while attempting to leave Turkey so he could receive medical treatment abroad. His parents were accused of using forged travel documents. The İzmir 1st Criminal Magistrate of Peace ordered the arrest of his father, Araz Rasho, on August 1 and sent him to Aliağa Şakran Prison.
The court released Alveer’s mother, Shahbaz Rasho, under judicial supervision, imposing an international travel ban. However, immigration authorities subsequently took her and her two young children to the Harmandalı Deportation Center and put them under administrative detention.
The family’s lawyer, Edhem Kuruş, said Alveer requires regular anti-epileptic medication as documented by medical records in the case file. Kuruş said Alveer’s medication had run out at the center and that the family had encountered difficulties obtaining a new supply.
Kuruş said they appealed the administrative detention of the mother and children to a criminal magistrate of peace, but their appeals were rejected.
Kuruş called for an uninterrupted supply of the child’s medication, an examination by a specialist and his transfer to an appropriate medical facility if necessary. He also called for alternatives to the administrative detention of the mother and children to be considered, citing the best interests of the children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Turkey is a party.
Turkey’s Law on Foreigners and International Protection provides for alternatives to administrative detention, including residence at a specified address and reporting requirements.
Kuruş also requested a review of Araz’s pretrial detention, citing the child’s medical condition and the family’s circumstances as grounds for less restrictive measures.
The Yazidis are a Kurdish people who follow an old religion related to Zoroastrianism but which has remnants of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their origins are in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. In Iraq they have been persecuted so many times in the last couple of decades that some have fled to Turkey in the hope of finding safety and the possibility of moving to the West.
UN human rights committees have said that children should never be detained for reasons related to their own or their parents’ migration status, saying such detention violates children’s rights and is incompatible with the principle of the best interests of the child.
The UN Committee on Migrant Workers expressed concern in 2024 about reports of children and other people in vulnerable situations being held in immigration detention in Turkey. It called on Turkish authorities to end the migration-related detention of children and families in law and practice and to ensure that alternatives to administrative detention are implemented in practice.
Turkey has also faced longstanding criticism from rights groups over conditions in its deportation centers and the treatment of children held there.
