Interior Ministry exempts working youth from partial curfew
ANKARA
Turkey’s Interior Ministry has issued exemptions for a curfew imposed on youth below the age of 20, saying that those who work are exceptions.
Public employees within this age range, those who certify that they work in the private sector and seasonal agricultural workers will be exempted from the curfew.
Those who are exempted from the curfew will have to carry documents proving that they are covered by the exception and show them during inspections.
Youth who work in public institutions and organizations as civil servants; contracted personnel or workers; those who have a regular job in the private sector and who can prove this with a social security registration document and seasonal agricultural workers are exempt from abiding by the curfew.
Turkey imposed a partial curfew on citizens under the age of 20 on April 4 as part of measures against the coronavirus outbreak.
Turkey also decided to shut the borders of 31 cities for 15 days, including Istanbul, to all vehicles, excluding transit passage and essential supplies such as food, medical and sanitary products, to contain the disease.
The cities include 30 metropolises and Zonguldak, a province where respiratory diseases are commonplace.
The curfew started to be implemented from the early hours of April 4, with strict police control at the cities’ borders. The police forces, dispatched to city entries and exits, have inspected every vehicle one by one.
Policemen denied the entries of personal vehicles to those provinces mentioned in the ministry’s circular. Some 26 control points were set up in northwestern Kocaeli province’s Şekerpınar neighborhood, near the Istanbul border, and Silivri.
But some citizens made up various excuses in a bid to ensure entry to the banned cities.
“I went to the village for fertilizers. I came back as soon as I can when I heard about the ban,” a driver who was going to his home from Central Anatolian Kayseri province's Bünyan district said.
Another driver who attempted to exit from Istanbul said he was going to “fertilize his hazelnut trees.”
Security forces also took strict measures at the checkpoints in the capital Ankara and allowed only citizens with valid excuses to pass the checkpoints.
Citizens who had no valid excuses were returned.
In resort towns or cities, such as Antalya and Muğla, citizens were also subjected to checkpoint controls.
Meanwhile, the number of quarantined neighborhoods and villages also increased as two residences and two villages in Çorum, neighborhoods and Muş and Şanlıurfa were also put under quarantine.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in Turkey rose by more than 3,000 to 23,934 on April 4 with deaths related to COVID-19 rising by 76 to 501 people, Heath Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.
In the last 24 hours, 19,664 tests were conducted bringing the total performed in Turkey so far to 161,380, Koca said.
Ankara has halted all international flights, limited domestic travel, closed schools, bars, and cafes and suspended mass prayers to counter the outbreak.
In late March, Turkey ordered elderly citizens over 65, and those with chronic diseases to stay at home.
