Gaziantep joins Nobel candidates for hosting refugees
by Daily Sabah with Wires
ISTANBULFeb 10, 2016 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Daily Sabah with Wires
Feb 10, 2016 12:00 am
Another Turkish city is seeking a place amongst the laureates of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. The city of Gaziantep along Turkey's southern border with Syria is nominated for this year's prize, thanks to their hosting of Syrian refugees. The mayor of Gaziantep, Mayor Fatma Şahin, announced the nomination on Monday, a few days after a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) nominated Gaziantep's neighbor Kilis for the prize for their exemplary treatment of tens of thousands of Syrians.
Gaziantep hosts more than 50,000 Syrians in local refugee camps set up by the government, and hundreds of thousands of refugees living in the province and surrounding towns.
Speaking at an event in the city, Mayor Fatma Şahin said the municipality and governorate jointly applied for the prize. "The people of Gaziantep passed the test of helping the needy. This is their victory. They embraced their Syrian brothers and sisters and were helpful, especially in regards to the education of Syrian children. So, they deserve the Nobel," she said. The city's governor, Ali Yerlikaya, said that while European countries were discussing the use of force to push back migrants, Turkey had adopted a policy for embracing Syrians. "We currently host 350,000 Syrian brothers here and we act as ‘Ansar' for them," he said, referring to the Islamic term referring to those who resided in Madinah, who hosted Prophet Muhammad and his fellow migrants from Mecca. The governor pointed out that in four years, they had raised the awareness of education among refugees and managed to get more than half of children of school age to attend school. "Almost all Syrian children of age for the first grade were enrolled at schools, and this number is even higher than in pre-war Syria. We have shared our schools with those children and worked for their education," he said.
Turkey is home to more than 2.5 million refugees from Syria, making it the host of the largest displaced Syrian population in the world, as the nearest destination for millions fleeing the war. Only a small fraction of them - 269,672 according to the Prime Ministry's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) - live in refugee camps, while others live in cities all across the country, from border cities like Gaziantep to Istanbul in the northwest. Turkey has been praised for its hospitality toward refugees, especially for the state-of-the-art refugee camps and continuous humanitarian aid towards refugees.
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