25,000 Refugees died in eight years while crossing Meditteranean, says Erdogan

An estimated 25,000 people, mostly women, and children have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea over the past eight years, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

Addressing the closing ceremony of the International Migration Film Festival, via a video call, Erdogan said: “In the past eight years, 25,000 people, most of them women and children, died in the treacherous waters of Mediterranean.”

Anadolu Agency reported that Erdogan not only highlighted the grave situation that refugees face while trying to cross the Meditteranean but he also called on people to set aside their prejudices about migrants and to note the contributions these people bring to countries and societies.

During his video call, Erdogan stated that the migrants who had died while trying to cross the Meditteranean were people who had set out with a hope for a safe future, however, many of the journeys ended in death.

“Fate of some 10,000 Syrian children who sought asylum in Europe is unknown,” Anadolu Agency reported Erdogan as having said.

Erdogan said migration was a global issue and millions of people have left their homes due to war, terror, and poverty.

“Today there are nearly 260 million migrants in the world, as well as over 71 million displaced and over 25 million refugees,” he said.

Turkey continues to host the largest number of refugees worldwide.

Currently, it hosts 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees plus 330,000 people of other nationalities.

In a bid to highlight the problem, the International Migration Film Festival is supported by Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry and organized by the Interior Ministry under the auspices of the Turkish Presidency.

The film festival features films and documentaries that capture the promise and challenges of migration, and the unique contributions that migrants make to their new communities and the goal of the festival is to pave the way for greater discussion around the issue.

This year’s Best Full-Length Film award meanwhile was won on Sunday by directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts for the movie “For Sama”.

Celebrated Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, this year’s festival jury president, said that “For Sama” was selected unanimously for the award.

The film focuses on Al-Kateab’s journey during the Syrian civil war as she and her husband, a doctor in Aleppo, raise their daughter Sama. They eventually have to decide on whether to stay to help others or flee to safety themselves.

“For Sama” made history when it was nominated in four categories in the BAFTA awards, making it the most nominated documentary ever. It was also nominated for Best Documentary Feature at last year’s Academy Awards.