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Turkey to Set up Camp for Aleppo Evacuees in Syria, Take in Wounded: Officials | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Evacuees from rebel-held east Aleppo, arrive to the town of al-Rashideen, which is held by insurgents, Syria December 15, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah


Turkey will provide a camp in Syria to receive people evacuated from Aleppo, Turkish officials said on Friday. The officials added that Turkey will, however, continue to take in the wounded to its own hospitals.

The camp shall be set to host around 80,000 people, in two potential sites, around 3.5 km (2.2 miles) inside Syria, two senior officials told media outlets.

“Work on the infrastructure for the camp will begin shortly,” a separate official from Turkish aid organisation IHH said by phone from inside Syria. The camp will be jointly set up by the Turkish Red Crescent, disaster agency AFAD and IHH.

The IHH official said evacuees majorly found a place to reside with relatives in and around Syria’s Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, but that work to identify those with nowhere to go was proceeding.

Turkey has taken in 55 wounded and sick evacuees, according to Hasan Aydinlik, head of an emergency response division of Turkey’s health ministry.

Turkey is already sheltering around 2.7 million Syrian refugees.