Locals from a refugee launching point in Kucukkuyu speak with Al Jazeera about how the influx has affected them

Kucukkuyu, Turkey – By official estimates, Turkey is hosting nearly 1.9 million refugees from Syria, while hundreds of thousands of unregistered refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran live and work in major Turkish cities.
Most stay just long enough to earn the substantial sum of money needed to pay a smuggler to take them across the Bulgarian or Greek borders into the European Union, where they seek safety and a better quality of life.
The Canakkale peninsula in Turkey’s northwest – with its long, sparsely populated coastline just kilometres from the Greek island of Lesbos – has become a launching point from which many refugees make the last stretch of their journey to the EU.
The once sleepy retirement community of Kucukkuyu on the peninsula has become the Turkish coastguard’s depot for the thousands of refugees they intercept every day, as well as a hotbed for smuggling activity.