CIAO DATE: 03/2014
November 2013
International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)
Before long, the voice of the Tunisian youth was heard and found supporters not only in its own country but also in neighboring countries with similar characteristics. The riots spread in waves. The protests which began in Tunisia and later spread to Egypt, Libya, and other Arab countries were referred to as the “Arab Spring,” and the subsequent regime changes they caused in these countries were closely observed in the international community. This multivariable equation was viewed primarily as a political issue in the international arena. That is, until the riots in Syria transformed into clashes. The reverberations of the Arab Spring in Syria gradually manifested themselves as a huge humanitarian crisis due to the harsh crackdowns by the Assad regime. Eventually, a group of 252 Syrians broke through the wire fence on the border of Hatay’s Yayladağı district on the evening of Friday, 29 April 2011, to enter Turkey and request asylum, putting the question “do we have a refugee crisis on our hands?” on Turkey’s agenda. Turkey’s Syrian refugee issue, which began with 252 people in April 2011, has since acquired a new degree of magnitude with the more than 500,000 Syrians in Turkey today. The bigger picture including Syria’s neighbors is even more alarming: the number of Syrians who’ve fled their country due to the ongoing civil war in Syria since March 2011 is over one million. United Nations (UN) sources estimate that there are at least 4.6 million internally-displaced people within Syria, though according to some Syrian sources, the figure is closer to seven million. An estimated 7,000 people flee to neighboring countries daily. Moreover, the UN estimates that by the end of 2013, the number of Syrians in Turkey alone will reach one million.
Resource link: The Struggle For Life Between Borders: Syrian Refugees Fieldwork [PDF] - 1.8M