Bulgaria Forces Turkish Exodus of Thousands (original) (raw)
World|Bulgaria Forces Turkish Exodus of Thousands
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/22/world/bulgaria-forces-turkish-exodus-of-thousands.html
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- June 22, 1989
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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June 22, 1989
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They trooped by the hundreds across the border today, this latest breed of displaced persons, pushing the remnants of their lives in carts and wheelbarrows.
They were people of Turkish descent who have lived for countless generations in Bulgaria. But now they are being expelled, or encouraged to leave, in a wave of intimidation and religious repression that has no end in sight.
Turkish officials say that 52,000 refugees have arrived from Bulgaria since the forced exodus began in May, and that the total grows by 2,000 a day. At that rate, there could be 100,000 here by mid-July. Some Solution Imperative
Turkey, which is also sheltering 36,000 Iraqi Kurds in refugee camps in the southeast, finds itself straining to keep pace. It says it has pleaded in vain for talks with Bulgaria on ways to regulate the flow and to protect the property and other rights of the ethnic Turks. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Turgut Ozal has pledged that, if need be, he will accept every one of the estimated 1.5 million Turks in Bulgaria.
Some of those crossing into Turkey today said they had seen soldiers shoot down their neighbors last month when they marched in protest against Bulgaria's five-year-old campaign to eradicate their Islamic identity. Tanks now patrol some of their villages in eastern Bulgaria, they said. Relations Were Never Good
Even in the best of times, they added, it has been difficult for them to escape verbal abuse or fines or beatings from the Bulgarian authorities for speaking Turkish, or for not using assigned Slavic names.
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