EU official praises Turkey on schooling Syrian children

By Sumeyye Ozer, Dmitri Chirciu and Fatih Hafız Mehmet

ANKARA

An EU official on Thursday applauded Turkey’s “fantastic” efforts for providing education to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugee children in the country.

Christian Danielsson, director-general of EU Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, attended an art event for Syrian children organized by UNICEF and Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (SGDD- ASAM), and supported by the EU.

Speaking to reporters at the event, Danielsson said Syrian refugee children are facing a challenge of becoming a lost generation.

"Turkey has made a fantastic effort in taking up that challenge [...] Now hundreds of thousands of Syrian children are in schools," Danielsson stressed.

He also commended Turkey’s hospitality towards the Syrian refugees in general.

Danielsson said the EU is supporting these efforts and it has provided three billion euros in the first round and now another three billion euros will be provided to support Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Turkey hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world. The country has spent more than $33 billion from its own national resources for helping and sheltering refugees since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.