Learning the hard way LOUNGING in a smoky café in Aksaray, a rundown part of Istanbul, Ahmed, a 23-year-old Palestinian people-smuggler, expresses confidence in the future of his industry. “People come here, they have sold everything, they will find a way to get smuggled,” he shrugs. Business has got harder since March 18th 2016, when the European Union struck a deal with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, to send asylum-seekers back from Europe. But people are still trying to make the journey. Indeed, Ahmed boasts, before the deal smuggling was “too easy”. Ahmed’s bravado contradicts European politicians’ claims that the deal with Turkey has broken the smugglers’ business model. Going purely by the numbers, the Europeans would seem to be right. Before the deal was struck around 50,000 people crossed the Aegean to Greece on flimsy boats each month. Between December 2016 and February this year, only about 3,500 made the journey. But on a closer look, the deal deserves criticism. Although it has been a political success, seemingly demonstrating that the EU can control its borders, its humanitarian...
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