It is thought that two first-response vehicles granted to the fire brigade were used in more than 200 incidents in 2018; this number corresponds to 25 percent of fires occurring throughout the district and 4.1 percent of fires occurring throughout the province. By this calculation, the number of people benefiting from fire-fighting vehicles stands more than 470,000.
The donated water tanker is used for large-scale fire incidents as well as for water distribution and street irrigation. The vehicle provided by UNDP is the only tanker used for these tasks in Antakya and is also used in Defne, another central district. According to 2018 data, water tanker was used in 4,262 water distribution missions and 1,925 street sprinkling missions; which corresponds to 25.66% and 17.50% of the water supply/distribution and street sprinkling missions in the province, respectively. It is thought that the irrigation vehicle serves more than 660,000 people a year.
“Just as Turkish or Syrian does not matter to fire; there is no statistics on whether people whom the vehicles serve are from the host country or from refugees. The officials at Hatay Fire Brigade give the figures in total; which in fact shows how meaningful is the UNDP project aiming at the collective development of both host citizens and Syrians.” said Ms. Akyol in her article.
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