By Merve Aydogan
ANKARA (AA) - Türkiye on Friday criticized the international community, particularly European nations, on humanitarian aid and migration, with the country's vice president saying it had "exemplary status" on both fronts.
"We remain as an exemplary country across the globe in humanitarian aid and migration management," Fuat Oktay told the Türkiye's parliament during budget talks.
Saying that more than 525,000 Syrians had safely returned to areas in their country that had been cleared of terrorists, Oktay said the international community was "passive" in the "intervention, humanitarian support and management of the refugee influx during the Syrian crisis."
Pointing to hundreds of cases of migrants being beaten, humiliated and arbitrarily detained at the EU's external borders before being illegally pushed back, Oktay said: "How many innocents' journey of hope drowned in the darkness of the Mediterranean (Sea), the number is unknown."
Türkiye has been a key transit point for irregular migrants wanting to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.
Human rights groups and media outlets have frequently reported on illegal pushbacks and other human rights breaches by Greek authorities.
Ankara and global rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back irregular migrants, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.
"No one could dare lecture Türkiye on human rights while the fate of tens of thousands of refugee children who disappeared in Europe remains unknown," Vice President Oktay said.
In 2015, Germany's Interior Ministry said nearly 6,000 unaccompanied child and teenage asylum seekers disappeared in the country.
According to a government reply to a parliamentary question, among the 5,835 refugee children and teenagers registered as missing last year, 555 were under the age of 14.
The majority were from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Morocco, and Algeria.
Separately, research in 2021 by the Lost in Europe journalism project revealed that over 18,000 migrant children went missing between 2018 and 2020, implying that 17 refugee children go missing in Europe every day.