Syrian schoolchildren paint their love for Turkey

By Cem Genco

HATAY, Turkey

Syrian schoolchildren in Turkey's southern Hatay province painted their love for Turkey on Wednesday.

A school in Reyhanli district which was built by the Turkey-based Humanitarian Solidarity and Cooperation Association (IDKA) asked students to paint their thoughts about Turkey as part of an art activity.

The children drew images of the Turkish flag, hearts, flowers and pigeons.

Among them, 11-year-old Ahmad Demir, who came to Turkey from northern Syria’s Aleppo city, told Anadolu Agency that he is happy to be here.

"I have been living here with my family for the past three years. Thanks to Allah, we are happy. Because we love Turkey, we wanted to draw paintings and pictures that show our love."

Another student, Nur Abdullah from Syria’s northwestern Idlib city said she and her family are living peacefully in Turkey.

"I worked on my picture for an entire day. I want to be a teacher when I grow up and teach kids here," she said.

Nearly 20,000 children -- who fled their country due to ongoing war in Syria and took refuge in Reyhanli -- carry on with their education in Turkey at temporary education centers.

On Tuesday, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said there are 976,000 Syrian children of school-going age living in Turkey, 620,000 of them have been able to continue their education.

Turkey hosts more than 3.2 million Syrians, more than any other country in the world.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to UN figures.