GENEVA: The UN on Saturday urged countries to speed up taking Syrian refugees from earthquake-hit zones in Turkiye, saying they were facing the trauma of loss and displacement all over again.
The UN made the call as 89 Syrian refugees arrived in Madrid from Turkiye. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6 killed over 45,000 people in Turkiye and thousands more in neighboring Syria and completely devastated hundreds of thousands of buildings.
For almost 12 years, Turkiye has hosted some 3.5 million Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war. Last month’s earthquake affected an estimated 9 million people, of which more than 1.7 million are refugees.
“Many refugees who fled to Turkiye in search of safety and protection have now faced the trauma of loss and displacement once again — losing their homes and livelihoods,” the UN’s International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a joint statement.
“To help protect those refugees most at-risk, and to help alleviate pressures on local communities who themselves are also impacted by this humanitarian disaster, UNHCR is appealing for states to expedite resettlement processes and departures,” said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.
With many refugees affected by the disaster in “dire need of assistance, we urge more states to step up and speed up processes, enabling quick departures from Turkiye,” he said.