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Turkey has a lot to cover with refugees

6 years ago
Syrian kids pose for a photo at a tent camp, built by Prime Minister's Disaster and Emergency Management in Suruc district of Sanliurfa, Turkey on January 9, 2018. ( Rauf Maltaş - Anadolu Agency )

Syrian kids pose for a photo at refugee camp in Turkey on 9 January, 2018 [Rauf Maltaş/Anadolu Agency]

Turkey has a lot of ground to cover on refugee adaptation, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Tuesday, reports Anadolu Agency.

He told a Chamber of Shipping meeting in Istanbul that 4,500 irregular migrants were removed from Istanbul last year.

“Now we are going to send 50,000 irregular migrants,” he said, adding that Turkey would not allow the city to become an “illegal immigrant centre”.

Turkey has been one of the main country which has been welcoming Syrian refugees –
Cartoon [MiddleEastMonitor]

Refugees from Syria have flooded Istanbul since a civil war erupted there in early 2011 when the Bashar Al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

READ: 1.8m Syrian refugees have returned home

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed since then and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.

Turkey has been the main route for refugees trying to cross to Europe, especially since the beginning of the war in Syria.

Some 268,000 irregular migrants were held in Turkey in 2018, according to the Interior Ministry.

The migrants were mostly Afghan, Pakistani, Syrian and Iraq.

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