11 helped me get to a hospital1. Another deportee from Mazar told his heart-wrenching story: We were 25 people pressed inside a bus with no ventilation, travelling from Bulgaria to Hungary. We began running short of oxygen very soon. Two members of our group died inside the bus. In Hungary, they [the drivers] dropped us inside a street, and dumped the two Somalian dead bodies there as well. We escaped from the street. I do not know what then happed to those bodies2. Each of these different risk factors posed a deadly threat to the life of refugees in their own right. Drowning ranked as the more frequent and the more fatal deadly hazards. However, intervention by coast guards often represented a mitigating risk factor with regards to drowning. Many of the deportees believed they had survived from drowning in the sea between Turkey and Greek because of the effective and timely interventions by the Greek coast guards. Being Shot at and Seeing Unclaimed Dead Bodies Afghanistan-Iran and Iran-Turkey borders were reported as scenes of almost regular shooting at people who attempted border crossings. Although refugees were also being shot at during their transit through the Iranian mainland, the Iran-Turkey border remains by far the most dangerous in terms of shooting by border patrols. Shootings in these border areas often lead to the death and injury of refugees and migrants en route to Turkey. About 38% (19) of the interviewees claimed that they were shot or their team members were shot at by the Iranian- Turkish border force. A deportee from Mazar describes his ordeal: We were a group of 60 people walking down from the Iranian border towards the Turkish border. The Iranian border force opened fire on us. Everyone began running. Only 16 of us could make it to the Turkish side of the border. About 10 people were injured and the remaining were detained by the Iranian border force. On the Turkish side, Turkish forces detained us and took us to a refugee camp3. Another deportee provided adds further details: We were in a group of four vehicles packed with passengers. As we got close to Iranian check post at the border, the drivers sped up their cars to cross the border. At once, bullets began falling on us from all directions. Two of the four people, accommodated in the trunk of our vehicle were killed. Another car was overturned with all its passengers. We were then taken to a desolate garden where we remained hiding for another 24 hours4. And 40% of the interviewees (20) reported that they either saw someone getting injured or dying in the wake of the shooting or they saw dead bodies of people including women and children scattered and left abandoned along the border area between Iran and Turkey. One of the interviewees elaborated his story further: 1. Interview, A. A., Mazar, July 2018 2. Interview, A. D., Mazar, July 2018 3. Ibid 4. Interview, H. Hamidi, deportee, 6 June 2018