22M Syrians in Turkey given health care: Deputy PM

22M Syrians in Turkey given health care: Deputy PM

More than 1M patients have had operations, and 200,000 Syrian babies born in Turkey since 2011, says Veysi Kaynak

By Hanife Sevinc

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey has provided health care to 22 million Syrians since the Syrian civil war began over six years ago, a top Turkish official said Monday.

“The Health Ministry has serviced some 22 million Syrians to date. More than a million patients have had operations. 200,000 Syrian babies have been born in Turkey,” Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak told a special session of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) meeting in Istanbul.

Turkey took an open-door policy on Syrian refugees and treated the crisis as a matter of conscience from the very beginning, he said.

“This is a human stance. Turkey will continue to show its conscientious responsibility and stance,” he explained.

On educating Syrian refugee children, he added, “There are 900,000 Syrians in need of education. Some 525,000 school-aged children are already registered [in Turkey]. They are being provided with textbooks in their own language.”

All Syrian refugees in Turkey receive health care free of charge, and medicines are supplied for free.

Turkey hosts some 3 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world. The country has so far spent around $26 billion helping and sheltering refugees since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter-million Syrians have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to UN estimates.

The Istanbul meeting of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction, which brings together 30 countries from the European Union and beyond, is set to conclude tomorrow.

Kaynak:Source of News

This news has been read 375 times in total

ADD A COMMENT to TO THE NEWS
UYARI: Küfür, hakaret, rencide edici cümleler veya imalar, inançlara saldırı içeren, imla kuralları ile yazılmamış,
Türkçe karakter kullanılmayan ve büyük harflerle yazılmış yorumlar onaylanmamaktadır.
Previous and Next News