Turkey on Tuesday announced it would establish camps in neighbouring Syria, including near the border in Idlib, to settle 170,000 people fleeing from the civil war.
With aid agencies such as the Turkish Red Crescent and the AFAD emergency authority, Turkey, home to over three million refugees from the seven-year Syria conflict, has increasingly helped the displaced in camps on the Syrian side of the border.
“Red Crescent and Afad have started the work to set up 170,000-people capacity camp in the Idlib and Euphrates Shield region,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy told reporters in Ankara.
He was referring to Turkey’s first offensive in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield in August 2016 to March 2017, which targeted the ouster of the Islamic State extremist group and the Syrian Kurdish militia in an area east of Afrin.