Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees who fled Syria after the civil war began in 2011, and the fall of Assad raised hopes that many of them would return home.
According to the data of the Ministry of the Interior, 1,259 people crossed the border on Monday, another 1,669 on Tuesday, 1,293 on Wednesday, 1,553 on Thursday and 1,847 on Friday, Yerlikaya said.
Within 48 hours after the fall of the Assad regime, Turkey increased the border crossing capacity from 3,000 to 15,000-20,000 people per day.
Turkey shares a 900-kilometer border with Syria with five functioning border crossings and has announced it will open a sixth border crossing in the west to ease traffic.
With anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkish society, Ankara wants as many refugees as possible to return to their homeland.
Turkey now hosts the largest refugee population in the world.[[[[3] The Government of Turkey (GoT) estimates the total number of registered Syrians under Temporary Protection (SuTPs) at 2,225,147.
Turkey also experienced a meaningful influx of Syrian refugees between 2011 and 2017, the like of which hasn’t been seen since the 1923-4 “population exchange” with Greece. [[[[2]The government opened the doors to those fleeing the brutality of Assad’s regime in April 2011, and by September of 2014, over a million people had sought refuge across the border.
