Ala Announces: 500 To Arrive Within 1-for-1 Refugee Exchange Programme

Click here to read the article in Turkish / Haberin Türkçesi için buraya tıklayın. 

Minister of Interior Efkan Ala has given insight into the 1-for-1 Refugee Exchange Programme to be put into practice as of tomorrow (April 5), and the expenses Turkey has made for refugees.

“Due to the crisis in Syria, we are hosting 2,749,000 Syrian brothers and sisters in Turkey as of yet. The number of others from further countries added to this figure, there are 3,690,640 refugees in Turkey.

“We have spent around 10 billion dollars as of yet. In this sense, other certain international organizations and countries have unfortunately had a contribution of only around 450 millions yet”.  

“The repatriation center isn’t on the coastline”

“The first readmission will be in practice on Monday (April 4). Those who left our country after March 20 fall under this category. Also the ones except the Syrians from other countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq will be delivered to the repatriation centers. They will be delivered from repatriation centers to their home countries, to the countries which we have readmission agreements or bilateral relations with”.

Noting that there was no repatriation center on the coastline, Ala has stated that the Syrians would be taken under temporary protection and would be delivered to proper locations. He has not given any concrete information on the five planned repatriation centers.

“Will send as many as we receive”

He has given insight into the system as follows.

“As of now, we have 25 liaison officers on the Greek islands as of now. Five officers have arrived from Greece. According to the latest reports, there is a drastic decrease in the number of illegal immigrants having trespassed to the Greek Islands in the last 10 days.it has decreased below 300 persons, which is one-tenth of previous figure. For each Syrian immigrant we receive, we will send one Syrian to European Union. This is the core of the agreement”.

“64,891 persons caught on three months”.

Minister Ala has also given information as to the refugees caught in the first three months of 2016:

“64,891 persons were caught in the first three months. This means an 4,5 times increase compared to the same period of 2015. In the same period of last year [2015], approximately 15,000 persons were caught. In the last 5 years, 11,933 organizators were caught. In 2016, 1,115 organizators have been caught as of yet. 315 of these have been arrested. (HK/DG)

* Photograph: Durmuş Genç - Bodrum/Anadolu News Agency (AA)