Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications on Wednesday refuted yet another, more prominent allegation regarding Syrian migrants that emerged in the aftermath of the twin earthquakes that left over 51,000 people dead in its southeast and neighboring Syria.
In its bulletin released weekly to counter disinformation in media, the directorate addressed the growing anti-refugee sentiments in Turkish media, stoked primarily by opposition politicians.
Syrian asylum-seekers, who were also hit by the disaster, have been the target of xenophobes with claims that refugees were prioritized in humanitarian aid deliveries, that some of them were looting homes and shops in the region, or even that the Turkish border was “wide open for them to easily walk into the country.”
“The manipulative content in posts made by certain social media accounts concerning Syrian refugees does not reflect the truth,” the directorate said.
Footage seen in said posts, which allege “hundreds of Syrians are strolling over the Turkish border,” in reality, shows Afghan refugees fleeing their country and walking over in Iran in 2021, the directorate explained, stressing that the video was not filmed on Turkish soil.
It shut down claims that the Türkiye opened its Syrian border after the tremors as “untrue and baseless,” adding to previous statements from Defense Minister Hulusi Akar that around 42,000 Syrians in Türkiye have returned to their home country since the earthquakes.
The Kahramanmaraş-centered earthquakes, measuring 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck 10 other provinces – Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Şanlıurfa, Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Kilis, Osmaniye and Elazığ – killing 45,089 and injuring 108,000 people on Feb. 6.
The tremors rocked neighboring Syria’s northwestern parts as well, claiming at least 5,800 lives there.
