Around 40,000 Syrians return from Turkey after quake

Around 40,000 Syrians who had fled areas affected by the deadly February 6 earthquake have returned from Turkey to rebel-held northwestern Syria in the two weeks since Turkey eased restrictions on their movements, a Turkish official and a Syrian rebel official said.

The immigration was recorded at four border crossings held by Syrian opposition armed groups, Mazen Alloush, a media officer at the rebel-held Bab Al Hawa border crossing with Turkey, told Reuters.

As of Monday, some 13,500 had crossed through Bab Al Hawa, nearly 10,000 through Jarabulus crossing and around 7,000 each through the Bab Al Salam and Tal Abiad crossings, according to a table of statistics Alloush provided.

A Turkish defence ministry official confirmed that the number of Syrians who had returned to their country reached 40,000 as of Monday. More Syrians were returning and the number was increasing daily, the official added.

Restrictions put in place by Turkey in April last year, just before the Eid Al Fitr holiday, had banned Syrians with temporary protection permits from making round-trips to Syria in an effort promote one-way returns.

Turkey hosts some 3.5 million Syrian refugees and anti-refugee sentiment has been on the rise in recent years.

In the aftermath of the quake, Syrians have taken advantage of an offer from Turkish authorities to spend up to six months in the northwest without losing the chance to return.

Many have gone back to check on relatives following the temblor that killed more than 44,000 people in Turkey and around 6,000 in Syria, most of them in the country’s rebel-held northwest, according to the UN.