Since my topic deals with West Africans in Turkey, I’ve been activity seeking them out everywhere: looking for Africans in İstiklâl, stopping every dark-skinned male at the Grand Bazaar, chatting with random Kenyans and Libyans in Taksim. However, a couple of days I go, I realized they were also stopping me, and asking me if I was African.
This probably has to do with the fact that there aren’t too many Africans in Turkey. In fact, the only numbers indicating how many non-refugee, legal Africans reside here is the official Turkish census. The only two African countries listed are Libya at 1,239 people, and Egypt at 445. Even assuming that the “Other” 4823 migrants are all Africans, that still only leaves 6,507 census-documented African residents in Turkey– out of a population of 60,000,000 (as of the 2010 census).
Now, the numbers seem a bit low, and I’m still trying to investigate further. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, to learn that the count is less than 5%– after all, the rest of the people, after Turkish and Kurdish citizens, make up a little less than 10% of the population. Luckily, there is upside to the phenomenon: it’s wonderful to share a bond with people that have similar backgrounds as you.
In the past decade hundreds of thousands of Africans have come to Turkey, most of them seeking better economic opportunity, some of them fleeing war and civil unrest, and many of them hoping to move on to Europe or North America. Check out the African church group that meets in Besiktas, and look in Bulbul Mahallesi for African shops such as hairdressers and specialty food stores.
Thank you! I am always on the lookout for new sources, so I’ll head over there before the week is up.
And yes, there has to be more Africans in the past ten years that came by, and since many stay, it’s curious to me why the report is interestingly low. My game plan now is to contact Turkish Statistical Institute, and get an even more in-depth explanation.