Turkey Braces For Surge Of Syrian Refugees Heading Home

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published December 10, 2024 | 11:37 PM

Turkey has expanded its border crossing capacities to accommodate the surge in Syrian refugees seeking to return home following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the interior minister has said

Ankara, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Dec, 2024) Turkey has expanded its border crossing capacities to accommodate the surge in Syrian refugees seeking to return home following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the interior minister has said.

Following Assad's ouster on Sunday, hundreds flocked to Turkey's southern border with Syria, with Ankara quickly moving to expand its crossing facilities, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters in remarks published on Tuesday.

"Although we had a daily capacity to accommodate 3,000 crossings, we have increased that to between 15,000 and 20,000," Yerlikaya said.

Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled after the start of the civil war in 2011, with Ankara hoping the tectonic shift in neighbouring Syria will allow many to return home.

Yerlikaya said "300-400" people crossed the frontier on Sunday but by midday on Monday, that number had "doubled".

"We will have a meeting with Syrian NGOs on Wednesday afternoon" about the refugees' return, he said, without specifying which groups would be involved.

Yerlikaya said that since 2016, "more than 738,000 Syrians" had voluntarily returned home, with a total of 2,935,000 still left in Turkey.