The number of Syrians living in Türkiye that returned to their homes has risen to over 20,000 following the earthquake disaster, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday.
Reiterating that a new refugee influx was out of the question, Akar said: “There are Syrian citizens returning to their homes and lands from Türkiye to Syria in a one-way direction. Currently, this figure has exceeded 20,000."
Akar said that the main reason for Syrians returning was that they lost their relatives and homes.
“We discussed the issue (refugee influx) intensively during the inspections we made at the border, our meetings with military and civilian officials, the inspections we made at our military units on the border line, and the meetings we held at the border gates. Certainly, these claims are untrue.”
Akar was speaking in southern Hatay province’s Defne district, where he visited the coordination center of Türkiye’s emergency agency, AFAD and an office of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
At least six people were killed and 294 others wounded after a fresh earthquake jolted Türkiye's southernmost Hatay province, the country's disaster agency said on Tuesday.
The Hatay-centered earthquake came just two weeks after the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes centered in Kahramanmaraş.
The powerful twin quakes struck 10 other provinces on Feb. 6 – Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Şanlıurfa, Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Kilis, Osmaniye and Elazığ.
More than 13 million people have been affected by the disaster, with the death toll now above 41,000, according to the latest official figures.
