“I am taking my cat to our new home…”

Yazı, 29 Ocak 2015

This is what 4-year-old Muna told us, showing her kitten. We met with Muna while she and her family were moving into the newest camp in Suruc for Syrian refugees. Muna has 3 sisters and 1 brother. She is the youngest member of the family, but now the family has a new member. It is Muna’s little kitten. She told that “I call my cat Pisik (meaning cat in Kurdish) and I will take Pisik to my house back in Ayn al-Arab. This is what I want.”

Turkey witnessed a massive influx from Ayn al-Arab (also known as Kobane) in September 2014, when around 195,000 Syrians fled to Turkey for safety and protection. Some 100,000 crossed into Turkey in less than a week time...

“It is much more difficult for our children to understand what is happening and why" said Muna’s father, around his 50’s, “we didn’t want to leave our home until the last minute...” and after a few seconds of silence he continued his remarks with a clear desperation in his eyes; “when a shelling hit a nearby house, I didn’t have any other option other than leaving. I was very much afraid that my children would get hurt. It was a very quick decision”.

“When we first came to Turkey, we stayed at our relatives place in Suruç city center for a month, and then moved to one of the transit shelter managed by Turkish authorities” told Muna’s father. Following the refugee influx in the second half of September 2014 to Suruc, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) launched the camp on 25 January 2015, and Muna’s family is among the first families provided shelter in the camp.

The new camp opened in Suruç in Şanlıurfa province, is among the 24 camps set up and managed by Turkey. It is the biggest camp with capacity to accommodate 35,000 people. With Suruç camp; when it is fully populated, Turkey will be providing shelter to over 260,000 Syrians only in camps, where the total number of Syrian refugees in the country is around 1.7 million as shared by the authorities.

In close cooperation with the authorities, UNHCR is supporting Turkey’s response to the Syrian emergency since the onset, which is covering both camp and non-camp refugees. Besides the support provided on the days of influx from Ayn al-Arab to Suruç, and the distribution of life saving items to Syrian refugees living in urban, including the items to help refugees in winter, agency has also extended its non-food item support to the new camp to host mostly the Syrian refugees having fled Ayn al-Arab. UNHCR’s support to the Suruç camp amounting approximately 2 million USD includes winter clothing for refugees, kitchen and cooking facilities, mattresses, blankets, hygiene parcels, heaters, dishwashing containers that would provide relief to hardship of life in refugee.

Muna’s father said “Now we are moving into our new home…, we will go and visit our relatives who hosted us on the first days in Suruç, but I want them to visit us and little Pisik, who is now the joy of my children and my family, at our house in Ayn al-Arab. I pray for it every day…”.