Turjoy Chowdhury – Since the outset of the conflict in March 2011, increasing number of refugees from Syrian Arab Republic has sought asylum in Turkey. Escalation of violations in Syria in 2012 and onwards created dramatic increases in humanitarian needs.
From the outset of the conflict, the Republic of Turkey followed an open door policy to refugees. According to a survey of AFAD during June-July 2013, there were a total of 200,386 Syrian refugees in 20 camps and it was believed that there were a total of 350,000 Syrian refugees outside of the camps in various cities of Turkey.
That means almost 36% of the refugees were inside the camps and 64% outside. On 1 June 2014, the UN refugee agency put the number of Syrians in Turkey at 765,000 that represents 27% of the Syrian refugees in the region. About 49 % of the population is females and 51% males, while 185 of the overall population are children under five. Turkish deputy prime minister has said that the number of Syrians in neighboring Turkey has surpassed 1 million. More than 700,000 Syrian refugees – 70% of Turkey’s total Syrian refugee population – live outside of camps. A growing number of them are likely to swell the already growing numbers of Syrians in practically all the major cities of Turkey led of course by Istanbul. The number of Syrian refugees is increasing rapidly and right now in Istanbul the number is approximately more than 200,000.
This is the story of some of those Syrian refugees who have been successfully fled from Syria and saved their life from the bloody and brutal violence because of the uprising against Bashar al- Assad, which basically began more than three years ago and struggling outside of the camps in Istanbul right now.
About Turjoy Chowdhury
I am Turjoy Chowdhury, a student of Architecture and a practicing freelance documentary photographer and photojournalist. I mainly like to do photo-stories. I believe Documentary Photography has the power to express a lot of things rather than words and I want to practice photojournalism/Documentary photography not only as a profession, but as a social service as well. Though it’s not possible to change a whole society through photography alone, at least I want to make some contribution to it with my photography.
I am seriously in the field of photography since 2011. My works got published in The Guardian, BBC, WNN, Zone Zero, Aksgar magazine, Foto Evidience, Fotovisura, ND Magazine, Private Magazine, Dodho Magazine, CFYE, Fotoritim, Fstop magazine, JPGmag, Redbird Edition, 1x etc. I have become featured photographer by Aksgar at Delhi Photo Festival, 2013. I won awards in Carnegie Council’s International Student Photo Contest, Photophilontophy activist awards
(grand prize). [Official Website]