Refugee protection is the responsibility of the entire global community, not only Turkey or other neighboring countries, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative to Turkey Carol Batchelor has said.

“We need a more robust response from the international community to help us address the challenges of refugees,” said Batchelor.

She said Turkey has been unwavering in its commitment to refugees' protection as the numbers continue to grow. Turkey hosts over 500,000 registered Syrian refugees, and over 200,000 of these are in various refugee camps. Thus, over 300,000 registered refugees are living outside of the camps.

With its 900-kilometer border with Syria, Turkey has said it will maintain its "open door" policy to those fleeing the Syrian civil war, which started in March 2011, although it has closed the border crossings from time to time following clashes near the frontier.

According to UNHCR figures, 6.5 million people are displaced inside Syria and there are 10 million people who require aid. The total number of Syrian refugees in the region is over 2 million.

Underlining that the first element of refugee protection is ensuring people's safety when they flee from their own countries, Batchelor stated that all countries should allow access to their territories.

“Countries should look at creative ways [of accepting refugees], and resettlement might be one of them. We are launching a campaign for robust solidarity and a sharing of responsibility with the host countries,” she said, reiterating the UNHCR's appeal to all countries.
UNHCR Geneva meetings with Syria's neighboring countries

She also noted that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had attended a meeting of Syria's neighboring countries in September.

Davutoğlu represented Turkey at the “Ministerial Meeting of Syria-Bordering Countries” along with the foreign ministers of Iraq and Jordan and the social affairs minister of Lebanon. The aim of the meeting was to draw the international public's attention to the situation of Syrian refugees fleeing to neighboring countries. Strategies for sharing the responsibility currently on the shoulders of hosting countries were also a key topic in the discussion.

The meeting's participants also reviewed measures which are scheduled to be adopted at the “Solidarity and Burden-Sharing with the Countries Hosting the Syrian Refugees” session at the UNHCR's 64th Executive Committee Meeting from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 in Geneva.

A UNHCR press release of Sept. 3 said the number of Syrian refugees has surpassed 2 million and that there is no sign of a quick end to the tragedy. The number of Syrians registered or who would register as refugees was previously at about 230,000.

The press release noted the overwhelming burden on the infrastructure, economy and societies of the surrounding countries that are housing Syrian refugees and emphasized the urgent need for extensive international support to help those countries deal with the crisis.
Regional Refugee Response Plan requests more support for host countries

Commenting on the burden on host countries, Batchelor stressed that these pressures are exerting a drain on Turkish infrastructure, resources and services.

She noted that in addition to the UN's responsibility to provide support for refugee protection, it is also a duty to discuss with the state whether the host community is experiencing a drain on local resources.

“We want to help, and we discussed in the new Regional Refugee Response Plan that we will have sections to look at the needs of refugees in host communities and see how the UN can provide help to the humanitarian needs of refugees and any support for the host communities,” she said.

In an earlier speech, Batchelor also praised a law regarding foreigners and international protection that passed through Parliament in early April and was approved by President Abdullah Gül the same month.

The law will protect refugees from Syria and other non-European nations as "conditional refugees" in place of the previous description of "guests."

"They will be allowed to remain in Turkey until they are placed in a third country," read the law, which reserves full refugee status for Europeans only.

Syrians live in 21 refugee camps, mainly near Turkish cities close to the border, while most refugees do not live in the camps.
UNHCR to seek 30,000 resettlement slots around the world

During the Geneva meeting held in September, it was agreed that there will be an international working group on the resettlement of Syrian refugees, which will look at how many refugees can be moved from certain areas in an organized procedural manner.

Batchelor noted that the first selection criterion would be for extremely vulnerable people with special needs.

“We will have a procedure and will ask immediately for 30,000 resettlement slots, but this is only the beginning. So in 2014, we expect a strong commitment from countries to make the number go up to 30,000,” she said.

In an attempt to prevent neighboring countries from closing their borders to refugees, the UN is also seeking support from other countries.

Batchelor stressed that countries should stop protecting their borders and start protecting people, adding that it cannot be only Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon that have this responsibility.

Commenting on the possibility of border closures, she said people would go to any lengths to save their lives.

“If the land border is closed, they will resort to the sea. If the formal border is closed, they will resort to going over the informal border crossings. That only makes a bad situation a lot worse, because nobody will know their location or identities,” Batchelor noted.

According to the Global Trends Report released by the UNHCR in June, global forced displacement is at its highest level in 18 years.

Batchelor said that it is not feasible to close all borders around the world, as it has been tried but has never worked.

“This is why we have seen, in the last couple of months, a major loss of life in the Mediterranean Sea. The reason why people are resorting to such extreme measures is because they don't know what else to do. Their lives are at risk,” Batchelor said.

She added that this is what the international community must understand: The best way to provide a response is to come together, allow people to cross and provide collective protection to refugees.

“At the end of the day, we want all Syrians to go back to their country. We are not asking millions of Syrians to be locally integrated in Turkey, Iraq or Jordan,” she said, adding that they want to return home.
UNHCR working on immunization against polio in Syria

As part of its health work in Syria, the UNHCR has been carrying out immunization programs to decrease the health risk when people flee to other countries.

“Polio was eradicated in Turkey but has arisen inside Syria. In case of possible exposure to the disease, we don't know if there would be an outbreak of polio in Turkey,” warns the representative.

Polio, a crippling disease caused by a virus transmitted via contaminated food and water, can spread rapidly among children under five, especially in the kind of unsanitary conditions endured by the displaced in Syria or crowded refugee camps in neighboring countries. There is no cure, but there are highly effective vaccines to prevent the disease.

The Health Ministry launched a massive vaccination campaign against polio in six Turkish provinces neighboring Syria, as well as Adana province, in November.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that polio has re-emerged in war-torn Syria for the first time in 14 years, leaving 10 children paralyzed. Turkey has more than 600,000 Syrian refugees who have fled the war in Syria.

The UN said in November that emergency plans were under way to vaccinate more than 20 million children in the Middle East, in the region's largest-ever polio campaign.
'UNHCR grateful that Turkey takes operational responsibility for the camps'

Commenting on Turkey's leadership on the refugee camps, Batchelor said: “When it comes to providing protection, it is a state responsibility. The UNHCR is a refugee agency which helps authorities to monitor and observe and provides technical assistance,” she noted.

The spokesman of the Prime Ministry's Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), Mustafa Aydoğdu, said in October that Turkey is agreeable to cooperation with foreign aid institutions in projects related to Syrian refugees or to receiving financial aid from other countries, which it prefers to operational support in its refugee camps.

Commenting on the Syrian refugees living in Turkey's camps and their needs, Aydoğdu noted that AFAD is open to cooperating with foreign aid institutions if they are willing to meet refugees' needs.

“AFAD is able to supply the workforce and manage operations in the refugee camps in cooperation with the Turkish Red Crescent. There are also almost 10,000 people from every ministry working in those camps. Thus, we prefer financial or in-kind donations,” he said.

Inside the camps, there is a system organized by the Turkish Red Crescent, the World Food Program and the UNHCR. A card is given to refugees with a certain amount of cash, and then the refugee can use this at a shop in the camps.

The UNHCR also provided mini refrigerators, mini cookers and cooking utensils.

Batchelor said this system allows refugees to be active. “They think about what to buy, what to cook and are somehow involved in life. If they do nothing, they become disempowered and also depression develops,” she noted.