Kurdish refugees reject government-run camp in Turkey
Kurdish refugees from Kobani are shunning the well-funded and staffed AFAD Suruc camp to stay in nearby municipal-run camps with fewer facilities.
SURUC, Turkey — This time last year, Mustafa Hamcu was lord and master of a 22-hectare farm in northern Syria, where his 15-member family raised livestock and grew wheat, lentils and sesame. Today, Hamcu is “lord” of a large gray tent in a refugee camp in Turkey, where he greets visitors sitting cross-legged on a carpet, surrounded by his wife, brother and 12 children.
Hamcu, an aging man with black eyebrows under his red-and-white headscarf, has a presence. The adult members of his family watch him respectfully as he ponders a question before answering, “There is nothing left of our farm, just the walls.” Last September, Islamic State (IS) militants rampaged through Biri Vaki, a village outside Kobani, in northern Syria.
The story of the Hamcu family illustrates the bewildering choices Syrians have had to make after fleeing to Turkey. It also demonstrates the monumental effort being made by Turkish municipalities and the central government to accommodate the refugees, who now total some 1.7 million.
Hamcu had the foresight to get his family to Turkey as soon as he could. Six people from his village who stayed longer were killed by IS. The Turkish town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, just across the border from Kobani, has put up the Hamcu family in a camp sheltering 1,250 people and called "Rojava," the Kurdish name for the northern area of Syria (Western Kurdistan).
