‘A moment in history’: making a perilous sea-crossing with refugees – photo essay

Ahead of a UK exhibition of her photo series Journey in the Death Boat, Guliz Vural describes travelling with Syrians being smuggled to Greece from Turkey

Standing on a Turkish beach ready to join a group of Syrian refugees on an inflatable boat bound for Greece, the photojournalist Guliz Vural's biggest fear was that the people traffickers organising the illegal crossing would not let her onboard.

If she had known that within a few hours of leaving Turkey she would be under arrest, accused of people trafficking herself, she would have thought twice about the journey.

The migrants carry the inflatable boat they will travel in down to the beach. They had to leave all their possessions as they crammed themselves in. Nearly 50 Syrians made the crossing in a boat designed to carry 12 people, adding to the anxiety felt by the children in particular.