A 15-year-old Syrian was shot dead by masked gunmen in İstanbul on Saturday, leading to allegations of a racially motivated attack, the Turkish Minute reported, citing Karar daily.
The incident, which took place in the Gaziosmanpaşa district of İstanbul, has shaken the local refugee community.
Abdullatif Davvara, who had fled war-torn Syria with his family, was playing with friends in a local park when two men dressed in black and wearing masks opened fire on him, according to witnesses and security camera footage. The attackers shot the boy 12 times before fleeing the scene. Abdullatif later died from his injuries.
Friends who were in the park at the time said the attackers were masked and dressed in black, confirmed by surveillance footage, making them difficult to identify. Local sources told Karar that the park where Abdullatif was killed had been the scene of frequent racist attacks on Syrian children in recent months.
Abdullatif had been living with his uncle, Mustafa Davvara, in Gaziosmanpaşa since major earthquakes in February 2023, in which his mother and siblings were killed. He had been working in a textile factory to earn a living.
Abdullatif’s murder has highlighted ongoing racial tensions in parts of Turkey, where Syrian refugees often face hostility.
After the shooting, Abdullatif was taken to a nearby maternity hospital, which was not equipped to deal with the severity of his injuries. He was then transferred to a hospital in İstanbul’s Başakşehir district, but by the time he got there, it was already too late to save his life.
Abdullatif’s body was buried in Kilis, a town near the Syrian border where his family had settled after fleeing the war.
Amid the worsening of Turkey’s economy, right-wing segments of the Turkish opposition have been instigating anti-migrant sentiment among the public, which has led to many incidents of hate crimes resulting in injury or death.
Cornered by the opposition and the unease among its own voter base, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been compelled to announce more stringent measures as well as “voluntary return” programs. Human rights advocates have accused the authorities of coercing the migrants to sign voluntary return documents under torture.
Turkey, under its temporary protection regime, has granted 3,535,898 Syrian nationals the right to legally stay in the country. The vast majority, 3,488,373, of them live outside camps, while 47,525 Syrians reside in seven camps, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
