Is Turkey's plan to stop flow of refugees legal?

Jasper Mortimer

Mar 11, 2016

A Turkish Gendarme officer detains a man believed to be a smuggler as Syrian refugees who are prevented from sailing off for the Greek island of Lesbos by dinghies wait in the background near a beach in the western Turkish coastal town of Dikili, Turkey, March 5, 2016. REUTERS/Umit Bektas TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTS9EC6 — A Turkish gendarmerie officer detains a man believed to be a smuggler, as Syrian refugees who were prevented from sailing to the Greek island of Lesbos wait in the background, near a beach in the western Turkish coastal town of Dikili, March 5, 2016. — REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA, Turkey — The “captain” of the sunken boat was warming himself under a blanket when the Greek coast guard officers grabbed him. They marched him to where the corpses of three of his passengers lay.

The guards forced him to kneel down, and one said, “OK, look, eh!” The guards then revealed the faces of the drowned refugees — children ages 2-4 — to one of their fathers, asking him to identify his child.