Posted on March 10, 2026
In a remote mountain pass in eastern Turkiye, travelers from Iran cross the threshold with a mixture of fear, fatigue and relief, after a week marked by war, long train or car journeys, communications outages and borrowed phones.
Snow-covered hills surround the Iranian side of the border at the Kapikoy border gate in Turkiye’s Van province, where families and lone travelers emerge, many after days on the road.
Hundreds of people have crossed in recent days and there is now a constant flow in both directions as the US-Israel war against Iran expands across the region.
Some say they fled because bombs were falling on their cities. Others decided to leave after losing contact with loved ones, traveling by land when flights were cancelled.
Egyptian factory worker Mohammad Fauzi, 46, crossed from Iran without a Turkish SIM card, without local currency and without knowledge of the language. He only had the phone numbers of two Egyptian friends in Ankara and Izmir and a plan to get to Cairo.
He had seen work come to a standstill in Iran during his three months there in the marble and granite sector, with many factories closing.
“The situation is very difficult and work has stopped. I can’t work, I can’t stay because the situation is dangerous now, so I want to go home, to my country.”
Jalileh Jabari, 63, said she fled Tehran because “bombs are falling” and the situation had become unbearable. The roads to the border were calm, but uncertainty in the capital pushed her to leave. He was traveling to Istanbul, where his daughter is studying.
“If things go well there, if Iran improves, I will return. If there is peace, I will return.”
While many leave Iran, some return.
Leila, 45, who did not give her last name to the Reuters news agency, decided to return from Istanbul – where she occasionally helps academics working at a German historical research institution – after losing contact with her family in Shiraz.
“How can I be safe when I feel like my family is maybe in danger?” she asked.
One of his brothers is seriously ill and in a coma, which increases his concern. For her, being physically with her family, even in danger, is more bearable than waiting abroad.
He plans to remain in Iran until the war is over.
“I can’t protect them from bombs. But when I feel like I can be with them together, maybe we will die together, or I can help them while we are alive.”
