Turkey boosts humanitarian efforts ahead of new refugee wave

ANKARA: Thousands of refugees are fleeing north from Syria’s Idlib province toward the Turkish border in the wake of prolonged airstrikes by the Syrian regime.

Kerem Kinik, president of the Turkish Red Crescent Society, told Arab News that, over the last two weeks, roughly 64,000 Syrians have traveled from the south of Idlib toward the north.

“The majority of these people were settled next to their parents, while some have remained homeless,” he said. “We are doing our best to accommodate them in our camp between Idlib and our southern border.”

There are around 250 tents in that camp currently, but 100 of those were erected in just the last two weeks. Each tent can hold 10 people, on average.

Kinik is hopeful that ongoing diplomatic efforts will lead to a cessation of the airstrikes, at which time the majority of the refugees, he said, will return home. “If the situation worsens, we will install additional tents exclusively for prayer and education,” he added.

When the Turkish military set up observation posts to monitor the de-escalation zone in Idlib, close to Kurdish-held Afrin and Manbij, as part of the cease-fire agreement of the Astana deal set up by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran, it was hoped that the area would return to relative peace and normality. Indeed, according to Turkey’s state-run Andalou Agency, thousands of Syrian refugees returned to their homes in Idlib in recent months.

However, that pattern looks set to change unless the airstrikes are stopped. According to the UN, Idlib’s population is about 2 million, so Turkey will need to develop an efficient crisis management program as it faces a possible humanitarian crisis amid harsh winter conditions.

Omar Kadkoy, a research associate at the Ankara-based think tank TEPAV, said Idlib province is a unique case, in the context of the Syrian war, as it is already home to around 1.1 million people internally displaced from other Syrian provinces.

Kadkoy warned of a “new wave” of displaced people whom he expects will settle on the border strip between Idlib and the Hatay.

“Turkey’s border with Syria has been shut for two years,” he told Arab News. “But Ankara has not abandoned the Syrian refugees; a safe-haven strip emerged between Idlib and Hatay where 700,000 Syrians live in around 400 camps.”

Those camps, he explained, are run by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH). It has received 100,000 new arrivals as a consequence of the new offensive, he added, and estimates that number could increase to half a million.

“This requires IHH and its 92 partners to prepare an up-to-scale emergency response, considering especially the weather conditions,” Kadkoy said.

The increasing number of settlements and residents next to the Turkish border is clearly a concern for Turkey. Idlib is known to be a base for many radical groups.

“The 900 km border wall with Syria is expected to be completed this spring. But the Turkish Armed Forces are on highest alert; the first week of January witnessed the apprehension of 8,000 Syrians who attempted to enter Turkey,” he said.

“So, while the army is eliminating the infiltration of any possible terrorists — Ankara’s humanitarian foreign policy is actively present on the ground to meet the urgent needs of the internally displaced Syrians.”

Metin Corabatir, former spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Turkey, and president of the Research Center on Asylum and Migration in Ankara, suggested that it is too early to assess the recent immigration pattern.

“Turkey still has diplomatic influence as a guarantor country under the Astana deal,” he told Arab News. “In the first instance, I expect that Ankara will use this trump card to manage the potential immigration flow by appeasing the situation through contacts with Moscow.”

“Turkey, already hosting about 3.4 million Syrians, is currently not in a position to take more in,” he added.