Turkey – AFP – 1/30/2015 – With their town liberated but largely destroyed by battles that drove Islamic State jihadists out, thousands of Syrian residents of Kobane are settling into Turkey’s newest refugee camp for an indefinite stay. 
Opened on Sunday just several kilometres from the Syrian border, the new compound near the town of Suruc is the largest refugee camp yet in Turkey, and has begun taking in some of the estimated 200,000 people who fled Kobane after it came under IS attack in September.
Made up of 7,000 tents capable of housing 35,000 people, the camp has been taking in around 1,000 refugees per day, site director Mehmethan Ozdemir told AFP.
But given the mass of people currently adrift in southern Turkey and northern Syria, the camp will only be able to house a portion of Kobane inhabitants.
In the meantime, months of intense street fighting and heavy air strikes against IS forces have levelled much of Kobane, leaving displaced inhabitants with little option to setting up home in the Turkish camp.
Covering a 1,000 hectare (2,470 acre) expanse, the compound features solid, furnished tents equipped with mini-refrigerators. It has six schools, two hospitals, shower and toilet facilities, multiple mosques, kitchens providing three meals each days, and even playgrounds.
Part of Turkey’s nearly $5 billion dollar effort to care for the nearly 1.7 million refugees that it has received from Syria, the Suruc camp is also issuing “each refugee, no matter their age, a debit card credited with 85 Turkish pounds (32 euros) per month” with which to purchase personal items.