ANKARA (AA) - Children of Ahiska Turks from eastern Ukraine being settled under asylum measures in eastern Turkey have been taking part in a summer Quran course organized by Turkey’s religious affairs body.
Summer courses for Quran learning, organized by the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey, received youngsters from almost 177 families of newly settled Ahiska Turks in eastern towns like Bitlis’s Ahlat and Uzumlu in Erzincan.
Many Ahiska Turks fled their homes during the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Ukraine.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the imam of Toki mosque in Ahlat, Ayhan Kaya, said the enthusiasm of parents who sent their children to the religious classes was higher than usual.
“Ahiska families treat the issue in a very sensitive manner and send their children to our mosque for learning the Quran,” Kaya said, adding: “May Allah bless them. And we also will try to teach them as much as we can by using all facilities we have.”
Ahiska Turks were expelled in 1944 from their homeland - the Meskheti region of Georgia - by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, in an attempt to remove Turks from the shores of the Black Sea.
They faced discrimination and human rights abuses before and after deportation. Those who migrated to Ukraine in 1990 settled in shanty towns used by seasonal workers.
Fourteen-year-old participant Eldar Milazof said that in Turkey they had the chance to study religion, something they were unable to do in Ukraine.
“I came from Ukraine and now I’m learning my religion here. I don’t know how to recite Quran but I will learn reading, God willing," he said.
“We know nothing about this in Ukraine and we began learning just after our arrival in Turkey,” another trainee, Osman Muhammetli, said.
Mufti of Uzumlu County, Adem Karadeniz, said his office has also been providing services for adults.
More than 6,000 people have lost their lives in the Ukrainian conflict, and 1.4 million people, since April 2014, according to the UN, have been internally displaced.