Turkish Red Crescent to help more refugees during Ramadan

By Ahmet Ozler

KARABUK, Turkey

The Turkish Red Crescent chairman Kerem Kinik told Anadolu Agency on Thursday that the organization was currently helping around 50,000 victims of terror but hoped to do more during Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims.

Kinik told Anadolu Agency that the Turkish Red Crescent (Turk Kizilayi) would be a bridge between those who want to help and the helpless during Ramadan.

"We want to enjoy Ramadan with refugees and their children in the refugee camps", said Kinik, adding that fast-breaking meals would be provided.

Kinik said that the Red Crescent has provided support for victims in Turkey's eastern and southeastern areas where anti-terror operations continue.

Turkey has been staging various anti-terror operations in its southeastern provinces against the PKK.

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU, the PKK resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.

Since then, more than 440 members of the security forces, including troops, police officers, and village guards, have been martyred, and over 4,500 PKK terrorists were killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.

"Our first priority is supplying immediate humanitarian aid", he said and added that support in education, housing, sheltering, clothing and psychosocial help will follow.

"Kizilay has helped approximately 50,000 terror victims so far. We are thinking of [helping twice as many] during Ramadan," Kinik remarked.

Kinik also expressed hope to receive more blood donations during Ramadan, which this year begins on June 6 and ends on July 5.

"We request that regular blood donors come to the blood donation centers before the pre-dawn meal of Suhur during Ramadan to donate blood," the Red Crescent chair said.

Kerem Kinik also said that the organization would also provide food to 20,000 Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip during Ramadan.

Turkey currently hosts 2.7 million Syrian refugees, as well as hundreds of thousands from troubled states such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 11 that Turkey had spent $10 billion meeting the needs of refugees since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.

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

The conflict in Syria has now driven more than 4 million people – a sixth of the country’s population – to seek sanctuary in neighboring countries, making it the largest refugee crisis in a quarter-century, according to the UN.