Syrian refugee doctors serve fellow refugees in Turkey

MARDİN - Anadolu Agency

Healthcare centers in southeastern Turkey that serve Syrian refugees are receiving extra help in the form of staffers who have also fled war-torn Syria.

Four Syrian refugee doctors, two nurses, and four sanitation employees are working at two healthcare centers in the southeastern Mardin province, Saffet Yavuz, a local health bureau chief, told Anadolu Agency.

He said two more healthcare centers would soon be set up in the province’s Midyat and Nusaybin districts.

Under a project by the Turkish Health Ministry and the EU, the Babi-Sifa Refugee Healthcare Centers opened this February in Mardin’s Kızıltepe and Artuklu districts.

“I wish we could have done this in our country, but there is hostility there,” said Dr. Abdullah El Hatip from Damascus, who is working at the Artuklu center.

“Now we are helping [refugees like us] here. God willing, we hope the war will end soon and we will do the same in our country,” he added, expressing thanks for all the support Turkey has given the refugees.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in 2011. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and millions more have been displaced, according to the United Nations.

Turkey currently hosts nearly 3.5 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world.