Report: The Syrian refugee crisis and its effect on public services in Turkey
6 February, 2016
Source:
PSI, Kommunal
This research aims to discover the living and working conditions of Syrian refugees, their level of access to public services, the problems they encounter in accessing public services and the effects of this wave of migration on public service workers. The study was carried out with the support of PSI's Swedish affiliate Kommunal and released in Ankara on 6 February at the SES office - one of the eleven PSI affiliated organisations in the country.
The fieldwork was done in the provinces of İzmir and Hatay during the summer of 2014. Semi structured questions were used to pursue the investigation and attempt to determine the situation.
Within the scope, interviews were conducted with Syrian refugees, trade union leaders, NGO representatives and officials of the disasters and emergencies' agency from the government.
According to data from the UN High Commission for Refugees, the number of refugees who have fled Syria to neighbouring countries exceeds 4 million. While a further 7.6 million Syrians have been displaced within Syria, mostly living in difficult conditions and in places to which access is difficult. Before the civil war began, the population of Syria was around 23 million.
Amnesty International reports that 95% of the more than 4 million refugees are now living in 5 countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. According to Amnesty International:
- Lebanon is hosting 1.2 million Syrian refugees. This represents one person in five of the population.
- Jordan is hosting 650,000 Syrian refugees. This constitutes 10% of the population.
- With 1.9 million refugees Turkey has more Syrian refugees than any other country.
- Iraq, which has suffered the internal displacement of 3 million people in the last 18 months, also has 249,463 Syrian refugees.
- Egypt has 132,375 Syrian refugees.
Turkey has now become the country in the world accommodating the most refugees, with 45% of all the Syrian refugees in the region.
António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has said that the Syrian crisis “has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them”.
