İzmir hit with Syrian refugee crisis, crime jumps 30 percent

26 Mar 2015

Research conducted in five boroughs of the province finds that 2 out of every 5 crimes in 2014 were committed by Syrian refugees. Petty theft and robbery were the most common crimes. The age group of those committing crimes were recorded as between 14 to 25. A total of 150,000 Syrian refugees are in İzmir, after fleeing civil war and the subsequent invasion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some 30 percent of the 150,000 Syrians were reported to have been involved in crime, which to a lesser degree also includes murder. Crime is reported to have gone up by 30 percent to 120,000 recorded incidents. Another concern is the fact that many of the Syrians are without homes, and take shelter in parks. The lack of a permanent address makes record-keeping difficult for police. Close to 1.7 million Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring Turkey since the uprising against Bashar al-Assad in 2010 at the turn of the decade.