A massive wall rising over Türkiye’s eastern borders curbed irregular migration, although the risk remains, experts say. Professor Orhan Deniz from Van Yüzüncü Yıl University in the eponymous eastern Turkish province tells human smugglers were seeking new routes to smuggle people into the country.

Türkiye, one of the primary destinations for irregular migrants heading to Europe, launched a project to reinforce its border with Iran against the phenomenon in 2017. Along an area of 560 kilometers, authorities install precast concrete blocks to prevent illegal entries. In Van, where 295 kilometers of the border area is located, concrete walls were installed in an area of 96 kilometers long so far. The wall will stretch from the Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı in the east to Yüksekova of Hakkari in the southeast when completed.

Orhan Deniz, who heads the Center for Population and Immigration Studies at the university, told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Saturday that smugglers were desperately seeking new routes in places where concrete barriers, as wide as 2.8 meters and five meters tall (with barbed wires atop), are not erected yet. The installation in the border region’s Van section started in 2021 and will straddle from Çaldıran and Özalp districts, key points for irregular migrants arriving from Asian countries, particularly Afghanistan. Along with the wall, ditches were dug on the border to prevent access to Turkish territory while soldiers patrol the area.

In the past three years, authorities managed to stop access to more than 155,000 illegal migrants. Deniz says it will be clear how effective the wall is once it is fully completed, but so far, migration routes have been shifting far from the area.

Deniz says the border wall construction will be challenging in some areas due to geographical conditions. He points out steep inclinations and heights where installing concrete barriers is almost impossible, particularly in Yüksekova, as well as Van’s Başkale district. "But still, without installation, irregular migration can be prevented in those areas with reinforced border patrols there," he says.

The wall alone is not the solution, according to Deniz, who says that "patrol roads" built in parallel with the wall played a more important role. "Surveillance of the border with high-tech equipment and swift deployment of border guards in areas approached by smugglers certainly influences control of the border. The wall itself is not insurmountable but at least slows down smugglers, thus providing time to stop them," he said. Summer the most favorable time for irregular migrants who often perish en route to Türkiye in wintry conditions across unforgiving terrain on the Iranian side. Deniz says the wall and strengthened patrols diminished the number of irregular migrants intercepted daily to below 100, "far below thousands in the past years."

Irregular migration is a main concern for the country, which attracts people from all across the world as a stopover en route to the West. Conflicts in its immediate regions and economic conditions aggravated the situation. On Sunday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced that authorities intercepted 3,192 irregular migrants between June 16 - 22, and another 1,831 migrants were deported in the same period. Yerlikaya said a total of 46,633 irregular migrants were deported between January 1 and June 22. Last week, 296 irregular migrants, all Afghan nationals, were deported by flights from Iğdır, an eastern border province.