The number of refugees has increased considerably in Van province in recent years. Almost every day, hundreds of refugees cross into Van without having any trouble in crossing the border. 

Most of the refugees are brought by "human traffickers", while others are brought by the state. Those brought by the state are put into the service of the regime's special policies. Demographic change and turning refugees into local guards are the main aim of these policies.

Today there are thousands of refugees in Van. The majority of the refugees remain in Van, while the rest are settled in Bitlis, Agri and other Kurdish provinces.

The Turkish state has recently built walls along the eastern Kurdistan border of Doğubayazıt in the province of Ağrı and Çaldıran in the province of Van on the pretext of security and prevent the smuggling.

Hundreds of outposts and control points were built on the border in Semdinli, Yüksekova and Çukurca province of Hakkari as well as in Özalp, Baskale in the province of Van.

The Turkish state meets with the Iranian state almost every week, officially to discuss security and how to prevent smuggling. As a result of these meetings, border trade was banned for Kurdish people, while the increased flow of refugees attracts attention as it appears more and more as a state policy.

Women and children

The increasing number of refugees in Van, sometimes leads to tragic events. On 18 July, 17 refugees lost their lives and 50 were injured in an accident in the town of Özalp, about 65 kilometers from Van city center.

Most of the people who died in the accident were women and children. In the first 7 months of 2019, dozens of refugees died in Van for various reasons.

The city of Van, which is adjacent to southern and eastern Kurdistan, is overwhelmed by the influx of refugees. Refugees ranging in age from 15 to 25, usually come from Central Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. Thousands of refugees came to Van and then are settled in Van and Bitlis by the AKP. It was revealed that the AKP government had recently settled about 250 Gergavuz Turks from Ukraine in Adilcevaz, province of Bitlis and many Kyrgyz families in the village of Ulupamir in Erciş, province of Van.

People react

People have started to react to the recent arrival of refugees in Van. A resident who remarked that the AKP brought refugees to Kurdish cities as a result of a conscious policy, said that the AKP wanted to change the demography of the region and to create a militia force attached to it. The Turkish state, which gave the villages and fertile lands of the people of Ercis to the Kyrgyz people, later used the Kyrgyz as guards against the PKK.