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Controversy in Turkey after Reported Disappearance of 122,000 Syrians

A Syrian refugee mother puts her baby into a stroller in Nizip refugee camp, near the Turkish-Syrian border in Gaziantep province, Turkey, November 30, 2016. (Reuters)
A Syrian refugee mother puts her baby into a stroller in Nizip refugee camp, near the Turkish-Syrian border in Gaziantep province, Turkey, November 30, 2016. (Reuters)
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Controversy in Turkey after Reported Disappearance of 122,000 Syrians

A Syrian refugee mother puts her baby into a stroller in Nizip refugee camp, near the Turkish-Syrian border in Gaziantep province, Turkey, November 30, 2016. (Reuters)
A Syrian refugee mother puts her baby into a stroller in Nizip refugee camp, near the Turkish-Syrian border in Gaziantep province, Turkey, November 30, 2016. (Reuters)

The announcement made by Turkey's Interior Ministry that some 122,000 Syrians in Turkey were currently missing, sparked widespread controversy and an attack by opposition parties accusing the government of being incapable of running the country.

Turkey’s Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli said earlier that some 122,000 Syrians have come to Turkey and registered there in 2016, without showing any trace for the last two years despite the search conducted by government agents.

Catakli then announced that the Ministry has canceled the records of those Syrians living on Turkish territory because they were not present at their nominated addresses.

Commenting on the decision, Republican People's Party (CHP) spokesperson Faik Oztrak criticized the ministry for its failure to handle the file of refugees.

He addressed the Deputy Interior Minister, saying: "What do you do, deputy minister? You should find the 122,000 Syrians you lost.”

In return, Catakli responded via Twitter saying: “While we were dealing with wildfires (which occurred in the Mugla forests in southwestern Turkey and lasted for 3 days), someone (Oztrak), made a statement that carried false and incorrect information … the Turkish state is fine even if there are some crises.”

For his part, the deputy head of the opposition Good Party said that the government does not realize the extent of the threat posed by the disappearance of Syrians, who might have joined terrorist organizations.

Also, Future Party deputy leader Selcuk Ozdag, asked: "Is this the way the state is run? You are not even aware of the danger of what happened.”

Separately, the Turkish Defense Ministry said it neutralized five members of the People's Protection Units (YPG) in the Euphrates Shield region in northern Syria.

“Neither northern Syria nor northern Iraq are safe for terrorists,” the ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Interior Ministry announced that its specialized teams detonated a truck bomb belonging to the Kurdish units in the vicinity of the village of Al-Hamran in the eastern countryside of Aleppo.

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Arab World

Israeli Airstrikes Kill 10 in School Housing Displaced Families, Hit Children's Hospital in Gaza

23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israeli Airstrikes Kill 10 in School Housing Displaced Families, Hit Children's Hospital in Gaza

23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health authorities said, taking Wednesday's death toll to 20.
Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms. There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.
Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings, Reuters reported.
“We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire," said eyewitness, Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.
"People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred (people), charred children, and were walking and saying: ‘Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.’ What can we say? Dear God, only,” she told Reuters.
Medics said at least 10 other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the enclave. Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli missile also hit the upper building of the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No one was killed in the hospital strike.
Gaza's healthcare system is close to collapse due to an Israeli blockade on all supplies to Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March, when it relaunched military operations.
It says the blockade is aimed at pressuring the Hamas militants who run Gaza to release 59 remaining Israeli hostages captured in the October 2023 attacks that precipitated the war. Hamas says it is prepared to free them but only as part of a deal that ends the war.
The health ministry said many Palestinian victims of Israeli military strikes remained trapped under rubble and on the roads, as rescue teams are unable to reach them because of ongoing bombardments. The attacks have also hit dozens of bulldozers and machinery used to clear roads, remove debris and to carry out rescue operations.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had hit 40 "engineering vehicles" that were used for "terrorist actions", including Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Some of those heavy vehicles were parked on the road and others inside the garages of municipalities.
“The machinery, because they open the streets and retrieve martyrs from under the houses. For a year now, some people have still not been retrieved from under the rubble," said Gaza man Nasser Mohammed Nasser, standing close to the mangled skeletons of destroyed bulldozers and trucks in Jabalia, in the north of the enclave.
Even before Tuesday's Israeli attack, Palestinians had complained they were short of heavy machinery, accusing Israel of refusing to allow the equipment into Gaza in violation of the January ceasefire deal.