Displaced Syrian families, who fled from various regions due to the war in Syria and came close to the Turkish border, are being rehabilitated in the briquette houses built in the northwestern Idlib region from tent camps where they live in difficult conditions.

Families who settled in briquette houses built in the countryside of Idlib with the support of Turkish nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international aid associations under the coordination of Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and Hatay Governorate, got rid of the tents where they experience floods and stay in mud, especially during the winter months.

On the campus, which also includes a school and a place of worship, 52,000 of the 57,000 completed houses were delivered to Syrian families. In the region where a total of 77,000 house projects are made, the construction of approximately 9,000 briquette houses continues. The houses under construction will be completed gradually and will be offered to families in need.

Enver Ali Arif, one of the neighborhood representatives of Kemmune Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Campus, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that he lived in tents for four years.

Thanking Turkey for its initiative, Arif said: "We escaped from the war and settled in a tent four years ago from our village in the south of Idlib. Life in the tent was very difficult. A lot has changed. We could not be protected from wild animals such as snakes and scorpions in tents. We got out of them and settled in these concrete houses. When we lived in a tent, there was mud everywhere. Now it's concrete above and below. We came to a briquette house. Like the houses, we lived in before the war. It has a bathroom, toilet, kitchen, everything. A hundred times better than the life we ​​had in a tent. Here we feel like we are in our village. We would love to end the war and return to our village. We would like to thank the Turkish people and aid associations, who brought us out of the tents and brought us back to the houses, and made our lives better."

Edibe Avad, the mother of five children, who settled in a briquette house with her family, said that she has been living in tents in the countryside of Idlib, near the Turkish border, for about four years.

Stating that they moved to the house three months ago, she told: "Living in briquettes is much better than living in tents. We lived in tents in mud and water. Most of the time our tent would collapse. We have moved seven times since the beginning of the civil war. Now we have moved to the briquette house, thank goodness. This is like the old village we lived in, a neighborhood. God bless Turkey and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."

Abdulcabbar Ahmed Avar, a 90-year-old resident, who moved to a briquette house with his bed-bound wife, said that his wife has been paralyzed for four years.

Noting that they have been living in a briquette house for about two months, Avar said: "Four years ago, my son died after a bomb dropped from a plane. There is no one looking after us now. We have been constantly changing places for 10 years since the beginning of the war. I hope this will be our last place and we will return home when the war is over. Life in a tent was very difficult. Fighting against heat, cold and pests. We couldn't help it. We're very, very grateful for these houses."

Zeynep Avar also thanked Turkey for the houses and said: "After my son died, I couldn't stand the pain and had a stroke. Now I can't stand up. I'm in pain. May God be pleased with Turkey that saved us from the tent."

Ankara is planning to build 200,000 homes in northern Syria for a quarter of all refugees in Turkey to resettle voluntarily, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced earlier this month.

"With financing from international aid groups, we've been working on a project to construct 200,000 homes at 13 different locations in Syria to relocate 1 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, including schools and hospitals," Erdoğan said.

"As Turkey, we have taken a step with these briquette houses, especially in northern Syria, and our goal is to accommodate 1 million refugees in these briquette houses," the president reiterated Thursday.

When the Syrian civil war began, Turkey opened its doors to those who had to flee the country to save their lives, now hosting more refugees than any other country in the world. Ankara also spearheads humanitarian aid efforts for Syrians in opposition-controlled parts of northern Syria and in Turkey while making large investments for Syrians in Turkey in social cohesion policies to help Syrians integrate into society smoothly.

Since launching several operations in northern Syria to fight terrorism, Turkey has been supporting every aspect of life in the region, from health to education, security to agriculture. In this respect, efforts to clear bombs and improvised explosive devices were launched and administration duties were given to local councils. The country also rolled up its sleeves to reconstruct hospitals, schools, mosques and roads destroyed by the terror groups. Within the scope of ameliorating the region's social infrastructure, people were given food and clothing by several NGOs while roads and buildings were rebuilt. These efforts paid off as hundreds of displaced Syrians started to return to the liberated areas.

In line with its goal to rejuvenate the region, Turkey is also building briquette houses for Syrians in the northwestern Idlib province, the last opposition bastion.

In northwest Syria, "a staggering 4.1 million people" need humanitarian aid, the United Nations warns noting almost a million people in the territory, mainly women and children, live in tents, "half of which are beyond their normal lifespan."

Many fear that the situation could only get worse in July, because Russia may force international aid for the northwest to be delivered through parts of Syria under the control of its ally, regime leader Bashar Assad.

Currently, aid enters the Idlib enclave directly from Turkey via a single border crossing, Bab al-Hawa. The U.N. mandate allowing deliveries through Bab al-Hawa ends on July 9, and Russia has hinted it will veto a Security Council resolution renewing the mandate.