Attacks on Syrians in Turkey increasing
Increasing numbers of Turks are angered over the social and economic consequence of Turkey hosting some 2 million Syrian refugees.
The government of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu continues to maintain Ankara’s open door policy for Syria refugees and to allocate state monies to support them. Although the government remains welcoming toward the refugees, it is hard to say the same for ordinary Turks, who believe their government's resources should be spent to alleviate poverty among themselves. The increase in the number of demonstrations against the refugees and attacks on them across the country, in cities as socially diverse as Istanbul and Gaziantep and Izmir and Urfa, attest to this.
At a May 13 address to NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, Davutoglu put the figure of Syrians currently in Turkey at more than 2 million. He bemoaned that while Turkey has spent more than $6.5 billion on the refugees, the total amount of international assistance received toward the effort was only around $365 million.
The past few weeks brought an upsurge in protests and acts of violence against the Syrian refugees. Some of these actions are said to be in response to the criminal activities of some of them, who are trying desperately to eke out a living to sustain their families.
Most Turks believe that there are far more Syrians currently in Turkey than Ankara acknowledges, because the majority of them are not registered. The government provides food and shelter for around 300,000 Syrians in official camps, mostly near the Syrian border, and the conditions there have been deemed to be more than adequate by international experts and concerned groups. The overwhelming majority of Syrians, however, are scattered around the country, many of them roaming from city to city in search of work or simply begging on the streets.
