It has emerged that the AKP-run Ceylanpınar municipality has distributed aid sent from Sivas and Ankara for the Syrian refugees in the town to the Arab Gellegöç nomads living in some villages of the district as an election investment.
It has emerged that the AKP-run Ceylanpınar municipality has distributed aid sent from Sivas and Ankara for the Syrian refugees in the town to the Arab Gellegöç nomads living in some villages of the district as an election investment. This duplicity of the AKP has also been shared on the website of the municipality.
The Ceylanpınar municipality distributed the aid collected in solidarity campaigns for around 50 thousand Syrian refugees staying in the district to Arab citizens living in villages 25 km from the town to gain their otes in the election.
The aid comprising 79 boxes of male clothes, 91 boxes of female clothes, 12 boxes of scarves, 92 of children's clothes, 36 boxes of blankets, 300 bags of flour, 100 boxes of food and various other materials that was sent from Sivas and handed over to the Ceylanpınar municipality on 20 March 2015 has been distributed by the municipality to Arab people staying in villages of the district rather than to refugees staying in camps. The municipality said the aid is from the municipality rather than mentioning how it was collected.
On 17 March, the mayor of Sivas held a press conference during the transfer of the aid collected in the city to Ceylanpinar, saying that they sent the aid to the refugee camp in Ceyalnpinar. A delegation from Sivas also came to Ceylanpinar to hand over the aid, and visited the refugee camp; however they were not allowed to distribute the aid in the camp because of possible disorder to be created by the crowd. The aid was then stored in the storehouse of the Ceylanpinar municipality.
In the meantime, the distribution of the aid by the municipality to other villages instead of in the refugee camp appeared both on the website of the municipality and the local newspapers with photographs taken during the distribution. However, it is obvious in the photographs that the aid distributed by the municipality as its own comprises those materials sent from Sivas for the refugee camp.
Meanwhile, another aid delivery of 5 trucks sent by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality to Ceylanpinar municipality on 5 December 2014 to be distributed to Syrian refugees and poor citizens has also been distributed in tschools in the district and its villages under the slogan “Municipality bestows hand on orphans” rather than to Syrian refugees. This news also appeared on the website of the municipality.
