28 Feb 2023; MEMO: Around 42,000 Syrians in Turkiye have returned to their home country across the border since the 6 February earthquakes centred in Turkiye's southern region, the Turkish National Defence Minister said on Tuesday, Anadolu News Agency reports.
Speaking in the quake-hit Hatay province, Hulusi Akar rebuffed claims that there has been an influx of Syrian refugees to Turkiye via its southern border, calling them "untrue".
Akar said many Syrian citizens living in Turkiye are returning to their home country due to the loss of their homes and relatives.
The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes were centred in Kahramanmaras and struck 10 other Turkish provinces – Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa. More than 1.3 million people in Turkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes.
Parts of north-western Syria were also hit by the quakes, but the damage is not as widespread and the death toll not as high as in southern Turkiye.
