Turkey hosts over a quarter mln Syrians at refugee camps

ANKARA

AA photo

Turkey is hosting over 250,000 Syrians at refugee camps coordinated by the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, a senior governmental official has said.

As of Aug. 12, there were 262,134 Syrian refugees at 25 temporary sheltering centers set up in 10 different provinces, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said in response to a motion filed by Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu.

While entry and exit of refugees have been recorded and services at these centers are being conducted by relevant governorates, 198 police officers, 610 gendarmerie units, 348 brigadier units and 2,780 private security guards have been working to provide security, Kurtulmuş said in his response released to the press by Tanrıkulu’s office on Sept. 16. 

“Additionally, X-Ray devices have been set up at entrances of sheltering centers as well as security cameras at required places. In the name of residents’ participation in management and quicker resolution of problems, there are mukhtars elected by them,” Kurtulmuş said.

A word of Arabic-origin, “mukhtar” refers to leader of a village or neighborhood, usually chosen or approved by consensus.

According to figures provided by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria to neighboring countries passed four million on July 9, confirming the crisis as the world’s single largest refugee crisis for almost a quarter of a century under the UNHCR’s mandate. This figure of four million is comprised of 1,805,255 Syrian refugees in Turkey, 249,726 in Iraq, 629,128 in Jordan, 132,375 in Egypt, 1,172,753 in Lebanon, and 24,055 elsewhere in North Africa. Turkey is now home to around 45 percent of all Syrian refugees in the region.