The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has thanked the Turkish authorities for their efforts to rescue people and ensure basic supplies following Monday’s devastating earthquakes regardless of whether those affected are Turkish citizens or Syrian refugees.
«I highlight the way in which the Turkish authorities and the Turkish state have included (Syrian) refugees in their policies,» the UNHCR representative in Ankara, Philippe Leclerc, has celebrated, according to statements collected by the international agency itself, dependent on the United Nations.
Leclerc remarked that the main area affected by the earthquakes – the southeast of Turkey and northern Syria – has the largest refugee population in the world, since more than 1.7 million of the 15 million people living in the ten provinces shaken by the earthquakes are refugees.
To meet their needs, UNHCR and other international agencies such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have made themselves available to the Turkish authorities.
For the moment, the efforts of Turkey’s emergency management agency (AFAD) have resulted in the successful rescue of 8,000 people from the rubble of the thousands of buildings that have collapsed following the tremors. UNHCR and other UN agencies are working to deliver to Ankara the basic supplies most in demand by those affected.
Leclerc has made available to Turkey some refugee camps to host there the victims of the earthquakes, «as there is a great need to support the displaced people due to the affected buildings».
In the same vein, UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh has lamented that, from a regional point of view, Monday’s devastating earthquakes are «a hammer blow» for Syria’s displaced populations, both refugees and IDPs.
Finally, the UNHCR spokesman has stressed that the agency has mobilized its staff to the affected areas in northern Syria to provide the necessary support in areas near Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Idlib.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
