Around 1000 earthquake victims from Turkey have arrived in the occupied areas

According to Hassan Tatsoi, the "minister of labor and social welfare," a thousand earthquake-affected people traveled from Turkey to the occupied territories in one week to find relatives or friends who had been living in the occupied territories for years.

In a statement to the Yeni Dusen website, which covered the issue today, Tatsoi said that about 1,000 people have applied for humanitarian aid to the "social welfare department". Three social workers, he explained, have been stationed in occupied Nicosia at the sites where assistance is offered to earthquake victims, who are getting information about their marital status, age, where they came from and how they were affected by the earthquakes. "As social services, we monitor everyone, patients, children, elderly, where they live. We forward them to the Turkish Republic because they should not be deprived of their rights there, they should not lose their rights," he added.

These people, he continued, can only be given humanitarian aid and those who come here know it. In the case of the earthquake victims, Mr. Tatsoi said, they are giving "humanitarian residence permits" with tourist status and that in order for them to work here the relevant restrictive permit must be lifted, which the "ministry of labor" is trying to sort out. "If we remove it, we will make a small change to the statute. We have taken the necessary initiatives so that people who have been granted humanitarian residence permits can start their working life without a preliminary work permit," he added.

In its publication today, Yeni Douzen said that it is not yet known how it is determined whether the people who come are indeed earthquake victims or not and made reference to the 1000 or so who have turned to "social services" to seek help.

According to the figures in that publication, 200 are applications for education, i.e. students in primary, secondary and high schools, who will have to enroll in schools to continue the year. Also, 130 people have applied for medical assistance involving cases of high blood pressure, blood sugar, asthma and heart or other chronic diseases.

The newspaper also notes that the "humanitarian residence permit" has a duration of six months.

The teachers' guilds ask that the distribution of these students, who are earthquake-affected children from Turkey, be organized and not placed in just a few schools, while the TC teachers ask that these students be placed under special supervision.

Yesterday and today, T/C media projected statements by the head of the T/C teachers' guild, Burak Mavis, that the exact figures on how many earthquake victims have come to the occupied territories are held by the Turkish "embassy".

[This article was translated from its Greek original]