Turkey has been "deporting or otherwise pressuring thousands of Syrians" to leave the country to Turkish-occupied northern Syria despite dire humanitarian conditions there, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report said on Thursday.
The report is the latest in a series of accusations of human rights abuses in Syria`s north that HRW has levied against Ankara in recent months.
The number of Syrian returnees to Tel Abyad, a remote Turkish-occupied district of northern Syria, has more than doubled between January and June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, HRW said on its web page.
Turkey, along with the United States and Russia, has troops in Syria's north and controls a swathe of land after several incursions there since 2016 against US-backed Kurdish militia whom Ankara considers terrorists.
Ankara had rejected earlier HRW allegations abuses and potential war crimes committed by its forces and allied groups in northern Syria.
"Turkish forces have, since at least 2017, arrested, detained, and summarily deported thousands of Syrian refugees, often coercing them into signing voluntary return forms and forcing them to cross into northern Syria," the HRW report read, citing interviews with deportees.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier shared plans to re-settle some Syrian refugees from Turkey in "safe zones" in northern Syria.
More than 3.1 million Syrians live in Turkey under temporary protection which protects them legally against forced return to Syria.
Turkey`s pledge to create safe zones "rings hollow as Syrians find themselves forced to embark on perilous journeys to escape the inhumane conditions in Tel Abyad," said Adam Coogle, HRW deputy Middle East and North Africa director.
Deportees to Tel Abyad "are deprived of basic necessities, including shelter and sustenance," Coogle added.