Effective policies needed as Turkey’s Syrian refugee problem grows

The problems of Syrian refugees in Turkey continue to grow amid fears of social reactions as the Turkish government has failed to introduce a comprehensive and long-term policy regarding the 2 million Syrian refugees who have taken shelter in Turkey, the world’s biggest refugee-hosting country.

Turkey has long been praised for its open-door policy regarding the Syrian refugees and for its humanitarian assistance to refugees in its camps; however, the situation for those refugees outside the camps is more complicated. The refugee population outside camps has grown significantly and has neared 2 million, leading to a series of problems based around their accommodation, education and integration with locals.

The Geneva-based United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a report in March that Turkey has now become the world’s biggest refugee-hosting country and has spent more than $6 billion on direct assistance to refugees.

Also, the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) — a coordinated initiative of almost 200 humanitarian and development partners, including governments, UN agencies and national and international NGOs, which aim to improve the resilience and stabilization-based development and humanitarian assistance to cope with the Syrian crisis — published its regional progress report on June 25. The report said that due to a lack of funds Turkey isn’t able to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees who are becoming increasingly impoverished.

The report highlighted that the vulnerability of the refugees is increasing with more than 1.8 million people currently relying on food assistance and more than 750,000 refugee’s children not in school. The report has also identified that health services have become unaffordable and inaccessible for many refugees, and almost 1 million women and girls of reproductive age may not be able to access safe delivery services.

Commenting on the report, Association for Solidarity with Refugees (Mülteci-Der) President Eda Bekçi said the education of refugees’ children is one of the biggest problems they are facing. “It is not too late for these children, and permanent solutions should be immediately introduced but nothing has been done yet,” she told Sunday’s Zaman, adding that these children should be integrated within the country’s education system.

Bekçi underlined that Turkey’s initial open-door policy was correct, but that as long as the problems of the refugees are not addressed these problems would grow.

As the UN report also underlined, apart from the problems of meeting the refugees’ humanitarian needs, the increasing number of refugees across Turkey also results in social reactions. Touching on the problems that arise because of the pressure on host countries, the report underlined that Turkey, which has a high unemployment rate and a young population, is more likely to face problems as competition for jobs increases the tension between refugees and host communities, with the crisis further impoverishing the most vulnerable host community members.

Assistant Professor Ali Çağlar Deniz from Uşak University, who recently surveyed refugees in Gaziantep and Kilis with a group of academics, warned that Turkish people’s initial “sympathy” for the refugees, who were regarded as victims of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s oppression, has begun to turn into “antipathy.” Explaining the reasons behind this perception shift, Deniz said the fact that these people stayed longer than expected in Turkey, some prioritization of public services they were granted by the state and the “cheap” work force they offer played a major role in this process.

“For example in Gaziantep, the cost of a Turkish worker for employers is around TL 1,500. But if they employ an unregistered Syrian employee, it costs them only TL 200. So, they lay off their Turkish workers and hire Syrians. Additionally, home rental prices [have] almost doubled. Locals have the [dual] fear of losing their jobs and paying more for their homes. Xenophobia is on the rise, and this may lead to conflict,” he said.

Turkey’s Syria policy totally wrong

Osman Korutürk, a Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy for İstanbul and a retired ambassador, says the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government played a major role in creating this bleak picture of Syrian refugees, by adopting what he calls a wrong policy regarding the chaos in Syria. “Turkey’s Syria policy was wrong from the very beginning. We should have worked for a solution to this issue through diplomatic ways instead of interfering in the internal affairs of another country,” he said.

Stating that Turkey opened its doors to the Syrian opposition and later even armed it, Korutürk said this was an attempt that does not match UN principles.

Korutürk added that he believes Turkey’s Syria policy is so bad that the government which created the policy risks facing legal action on international platforms such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

“And [so] in the end, we are faced with this situation. The border of Turkey [with Syria] has turned into a war zone with the emergence of new terrorist groups there, and refugees coming from Syria [have] led to serious economic and social problems. These people are trying to survive on the streets. They are miserable. The issue is not only about accommodation and food. There are problems about education and health as well. This is a human tragedy,” Korutürk said.

The former ambassador warned that xenophobia against Syrian refugees has begun to rear its ugly head in public. “So what should be done now? This has turned into a social problem. In order to correct past mistakes, the country’s Syria policy should be revised. Peace initiatives in Syria should be supported. Turkey should contribute to efforts to end the civil war in Syria and enable the safe return of the refugees back to their home after clashes end. This is not easy, of course. But the government should concentrate on this instead of toppling Bashar al-Assad,” he said.

 

 

TODAY’S ZAMAN