How to Build a Perfect Refugee Camp

But some also think that the Turks were making a savvy bet. Many thought the fighting in Syria wouldn’t last very long. That’s one reason, says Kemal Kirisci, director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution, that the Turks may have invested in such elaborate camps. “It needs to be seen in the context of Turkey’s policy to create one integrated market in the Middle East. The Syrians were going to come, and they were going to stay in these camps, and every single one was going to go home and become grand ambassadors of Turkey.” As Turkey’s economy has grown, so has its hope of being a significant actor on the geopolitical stage. “The Turks have a burning desire to show the external world how great they’re doing. These camps are a very visible way of doing it.

.. “Refugee camps have become the mechanism to try to control people,” Fabos says. “They prevent them from interacting with your citizenry..”