The cafes and street corners of this Turkish port city were jammed with refugees from Syria on Tuesday. Most carried backpacks with belongings and garbage bags full of life jackets, waiting for the call from smugglers.
When the call came, they left on different buses and headed down to the coast. There, they planned to catch boats that would try to smuggle them across the Aegean Sea to nearby islands in Greece.
There is so much sea smuggling traffic taking place here that several shops in this part of Izmir prominently display life jackets in their windows.
Racks of fluorescent orange life jackets also hung outside a barber shop next to a sign in Arabic that said "we have life jackets here."
Racks of fluorescent orange life jackets also hung outside a barber shop next to a sign in Arabic that said "we have life jackets here."
