ANKARA
A Turkish aid agency plans to build camps in northern Iraq for about 36,000 people displaced by ongoing attacks by Islamic State militants.
The first camp will be built in the city of Zakho located only about six miles (10 kilometers) from the Iraqi-Turkish border. It will house members of the country's Ezidi ethnic minority who fled from Sinjar, Turkey's emergency management authority said this week.
From 30 to 40 thousand Ezidis fled to Syria, and about 100,000 sought refuge in the cities of Zakho and Duhok.
The agency also is setting up another camp for 20,000 Iraqi Turkmen near Duhok.
More than 10,000 Turkmen families have fled their homes since militants from the so-called Islamic State -- formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL -- began targeting Turkmen-populated cities in June, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The Ezidis are an eclectic religious sect fusing Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements. The Turkmen are a Turkic people of Central Asia, now living mainly in Turkmenistan and parts of Iran and Afghanistan, as well as Iraq.
In addition to the camps, Turkey's emergency management authority has sent 109 trucks of humanitarian aid to the region to meet the essential requirements of the displaced groups.
The humanitarian supplies have included 12,500 tents, 36,772 packages of food, 147 tons of drinking water, tens of tons of dry food, 14,000 blankets, 20 tons of cleaning supplies as well as drugs and other medical supplies.
The Turkish Red Crescent has been sending aid to destitute people in Dohuk province, the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil and the Sinjar Mountains since the Islamic State triggered chaos in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.
It has sent nearly 4 million Turkish liras of humanitarian aid ($1.9m) so far.
Turkish people, non-governmental organizations and companies have also assisted the agencies in providing for the needs of the displaced people.
Amid fierce clashes with the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga forces, Islamic State militants have tightened their grip on northern Iraq, seizing towns with minority populations, as well as Iraq’s largest dam near Mosul.
www.aa.com.tr/en
