Turkish police clash with Syrian refugees
Syrian refugees protest against poor conditions in Turkish camps, throwing rocks at police and smashing windows.
Camp residents said the protest began after a fire broke out in a tent due to faulty electrics [Al Jazeera]
Syrian refugees threw rocks at Turkish military
police who fired teargas and water cannon, the latest unrest in camps
struggling to cope with a flood of people fleeing a civil war.
Reuters TV filmed the scenes at the Suleiman Shah refugee camp
on Wednesday, near the Turkish town of Akcakale on the Syrian border, as
dozens of protesters threw stones and smashed the windows of a fire
truck.
Camp residents said young men started the protest after faulty
electrics set a tent on fire which injured three brothers aged seven, 18
and 19.
A Turkish official said a "commotion" had broken out after the
fire, but that the situation was now under control and declined to give
further details.
Outraged refugees
Another Turkish official said the fire was not the cause of the
incident and that it had been started by residents outraged when guards
turned away around 200 Syrians trying to get into the site which is
already full, home to 35,000 people and one of the largest in Turkey.
Protesters said many people were wounded in the clash, something Turkish officials denied.
"Residents are angry," said Sahar, a refugee who spoke to
Reuters by phone from Suleiman Shah. She declined to give her last name.
"The mother of four children living in that tent had been
complaining for a long time about electrical problems and nothing was
done, and then we had this horrible accident."
Sahar said conditions at Suleiman Shah were poor, with several
families sometimes crowded into one tent, and that relations between
Turkish workers and the refugees had become increasingly tense.
Camps in Turkey for the most part have facilities such as
electric heaters to protect against freezing temperatures and refugees
receive three hot meals a day, better conditions than in camps in some
of Syria's other neighbours.
But overcrowding remains a concern, with more refugees arriving as fighting across the border drags on.
With Syria's bloody civil war now in its third year, more than 1
million Syrians have fled their country. At least 4 million more are
believed to be displaced inside Syria, aid agencies say.
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