JINHA

RIHA – Fatma Mihemed, a refugee from Kobanê who relocated to a tent city in Suruç along the Syrian-Turkish border, miscarried her baby because ambulance drivers and state-employed doctorsrefuse to serve tent city residents.

Kobanê solidarity volunteers, not the Turkish state'sDisaster and Emergency Management Presidency, primarily run the Şehit Gelhat Tent City where Fatma lives. As a result, says Fatma, the Turkish state, has a policy of refusing basic services and imposing punishmenton the Kobanê refugees living in such camps. "This state knowingly, willingly stole my dream, my baby, from me," she said.

Fatma, a 22-year-old refugee from Kobanê, was six months pregnant when she began going into labor in the early hours of the morning. When she called the emergency phone line, the operator refused her request for an ambulance because "we don't have security there." When Fatma finally arrived at the Suruç PublicHospital with the help of camp medical volunteers doctors told her: "We can't see you; get out of here."

When Fatma found doctors who would agree to see her atyet another hospital in the city of Antep, they said the miscarriage could have been avoided if she had arrived an hour earlier.

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