The Home Office has provided more than £3m in funding to Turkish border forces in the last year to prevent migrants reaching the UK, an investigation for the Guardian has found.
Funding to Turkey’s border force operations has increased substantially from 2019, when £14,000 was given to Turkish police and coastguard for maritime border security training, according to documents obtained through freedom of information (FOI) requests. That figure rose to £425,000 in 2021-22 for training and equipment and up to £3m this year for “return and reintegration assistance”, training and personnel.
