Syrian refugees, who crossed into Turkey after run out of town by the Kurdish YPG militia during the military campaign targeting Tel Abyad, say that the Syrian Democratic Union Party, or PYD, did not let them stay in their land.
Mehmet Halef, a Syrian Turkmen refugee who found a shelter in the Akçakale town, said his family was forcibly evacuated from the country they had been living ln.
“We were continuously changing our location due to the air strikes. When armed Kurdish groups came into the location where we were staying, they forced us to leave the area. They did not allow us to return back to our home," he said. “They didn't even speak to us and ask our names."
Popular Protection Units, or YPG, the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party, or PYD, has been conducting a large-scale offensive since late May. The purpose of the campaign, supported by the U.S.-backed strikes, is apparently to capture Tel Abyad province in order to link Kurdish-held cantons in northern Syria. Many of the Turkmen commanders suggest the PYD's ambition of claiming a strong autonomy in northern Syria will gain momentum after Tel Abyad falls to the Kurdish militia.
Halef's wife Rima said she failed to overcome the fear she had been caught up with when the armed Kurdish groups forced them to leave, taking with them only their children. “They were attacking and looting. We did not dare to look around to see who were killed and who survived," she explained.
Rima said that the Turkish military offered a warm welcome to her family. “They have given us new garments and food. Even a Turkish soldier who was holding my two children."
Another Syrian Turkmen refugee, Muqtad Hafi, who took shelter in the same refugee camp in Akçakale, said that the coalition jet fighters were bombing everywhere on their route. “PYD's armed forces raided our village and dispersed innocent people from their homes," he said.
“A huge number of people were driven out from their homes. They sent away innocent people from their homes," he said, adding that he was working as an English teacher before being dispersed from his home town.
The Şanlıurfa municipality has teamed up with the military, local NGOs and relief agencies to cover humanitarian needs of refugees, who fled into the Turkish border town, Akçakale. The Turkish Red Crescent, or Kızılay, has sent mobile kitchen equipment to the refugee camp, to serve food three times a day by cooperating with the local authority.
Doctors, sent by the Health Ministry, have examined and offered free medicines to every refugee who needs a certain remedy. Young children, considered as a risk group, have been allowed into the Turkish territory, after being vaccinated against polio and measles.
An estimated 1.7 million Syrian refugees have found shelter in Turkey as of April 2015, according
the United Nations Human Rights Council, UNHRC. The UN's refugee agency suggests 804,000 more Syrians may cross into Turkey as refugees by the end of 2015' as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levants, or ISIL, poses a security risk for those living in the areas near the Turkish-Syrian border.
