ANKARA
By Haydar Hadi and Betul Yuruk
Turkey ranks number one of the four hosting countries in providing services for Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war in their home country.
According to a recently published report by the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, there are no official camps for the Syrian refugees in Lebanon due to the government's policies. And the camps in Jordan and those overseen by Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government rely heavily on the support of United Nations Refugee Agency and nongovernmental organizations, the report said.
In contrast, 210,358 Syrian citizens live in Turkey's 15 tent cities, one temporary reception center and six prefabricated container homes that were built after the refugees sought shelter in Turkey. A total of 432,769 Syrian citizens have entered the refugee centers so far, and 222,411 of those have returned to Syria, according to the report.
Four of the tent cities are in Hatay, three in Sanliurfa, three in Gaziantep and one each in Kahramanmaras, Osmaniye Adiyaman, Mardin and Adana. Of the six prefabricated container homes, two are in Kilis and one each in Sanliurfa, Malatya, Hatay and Gaziantep.
About 600,000 refugees who live outside the camps across Turkey have their daily humanitarian needs and health services provided. Officially, more than 800,000 are currently living in Turkey.
According to the report, except for the limited contribution from international aid, the main financial burden of running the camps rests on the shoulders of Turkey alone. The country's spending exceeded $2.5 billion in April 2014 for the refugees, with Turkish nongovernmental organizations' aid providing over $500 million. However, Turkey received only around $183 million international aid for its refugees.
The refugees in Turkey receive such services as shelter, education, health care, playing fields for children and several social communities -- all in all, better than the services in the other three countries hosting refugees, the report said.
The biggest problem in the Turkish camps is the strict rules that apply to leaving the camps, and the rules that apply to living inside, according to the report.
The report said the Jordanian camps rank worst for the refugees, as the living conditions are not good and the refugees cannot hold work permits. .
Although shelter, education and health facilities are provided in the camps of Iraq and Jordan, playing fields for children, meeting rooms and courses are rare.
Despite this, the refugees in Iraq's Kurdish region are pleased by the government's flexible camp policies, according to the report.
The reasons Syrians choose Jordan to shelter, according to the report, are its proximity, having relatives already in the country, sharing common culture and religious identity, the report said. The primary reasons for going to Iraq are listed as economic difficulties, unemployment and problems getting access to electricity and water.
The biggest problem facing Lebanon's refugees is that no official camps exist, which leads people to migrate either to some familiar regions of the country or to the neighborhood of their relatives.
After six months of fieldwork in the refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies' project team prepared the report 'Condition of Syrian refugees in neighbor countries of Syria.'
During the fieldwork, the team met academics, opinion leaders, representatives of non-governmental organizations and Syrian people in all four of the countries.
The report stressed that Turkey was one of the countries most politically, socially and economically affected by the ongoing incidents in Syria.
Turkey has repeatedly called on the international community to share the burden of Syrian refugees.
Turkey now hosts over 1 million Syrian refugees, including unregistered refugees, who have come to the country since the war began in March 2011, said the director general of the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, Fuat Oktay.
"There are 70,000 students at refugee camps and around 40,000 adults are given vocational training," Oktay said at an Ankara based think-tank Thursday.
He said Turkey has spent $2.5 billion assisting Syrian refugees, and he added that pledges given by the international community for Syrian refugees are insufficient.
Referring to Turkey's policy of keeping its border with Syria open, he called on other countries to also open their borders for the Syrian refugees.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
