Turkey’s first lady visits new refugee camp on Syrian border

ŞANLIURFA

AA Photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s wife Emine Erdoğan visited a refugee camp in Suruç, a town in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, to mark the official opening of the facility.

The camp hosts Syrian Kurds who have fled their homes in Kobane on the Turkish border after attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who had besieged the town for around five months.

Education Miniser Nabi Avcı, Family Minister Ayşenur İslam and the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) head Fuat Oktay accompanied the first lady during the ceremony.

“Residents of Kobane, or Ayn el Arap [in Arabic], are our guests until their city is re-erected,” Emine Erdoğan said, speaking at the ceremony.

“Turkey is the world’s most generous big country,” she said, adding that all international aid bodies had “failed the test of humanity” in the Syrian crisis.

Turkey hosts around 1.7 million Syrian refugees and although most have spread to cities across Turkey, hundreds of thousands live in refugee camps. However, they are not officially considered refugees in Turkish law.