Heads of Turkish aid agencies visit Idlib


In order to closely monitor humanitarian activities, the heads of Turkish aid agencies visited a refugee camp in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, which suffered from heavy bombardment by the Bashar Assad regime.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Mehmet Güllüoğlu, the head of the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), said that he monitored the immigration process in Idlib with İbrahim Altan, the head of the Turkish Red Crescent.

"If the airstrikes continue, the refugee wave will continue in upcoming days because the people don't have any measures against airstrikes. As aid agencies, we try to build new camps and ramp up the capacity of existing ones," Güllüoğlu said.

He said that Turkey has shown maximum effort for Syrians but drew attention to the necessity of Russian and Iranian leverage on the Assad regime to stop airstrikes and provide permanent peace in the war-torn country.

"If the attacks don't cease, all we can do is establish new camps," he said.

Meanwhile, Altan said that 220,000 people migrated to northern Idlib after the offensive began, adding that the Turkish Red Crescent is establishing a camp for 3,000 refugees and to increase the distribution of urgent needs.

Also, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH), one of Turkey's leading aid groups, has already completed building a center in the Kafar Lousin village.

"Families coming [to the area] went through health screening at a mobile health center. A school was also established for the children," the agency's media adviser Selim Tosun told AA in Hatay, adding that water tankers were in place to meet the need for clean drinking water.

Tosun said the children were obviously traumatized following the bombardment that they witnessed.

"There were some children who fled to their tents after getting scared due to the sound of an electricity generator that we used," he said.

The İHH also plans to set up new tent camps in the Babushka region, near Idlib.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. This led to a military conflict between Syrian opposition groups and the Assad regime over territory.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, mainly in regime airstrikes targeting opposition-held areas, while millions more have been displaced.