Update - 18 Million Turkish Students Head Back To School

Almost 18 million children headed to school in Turkey on Monday for the start of a new academic year, bringing a spike in traffic volumes across the country.



Extra police were deployed as school buses and parents' cars clogged streets, bringing added strain to already congested cities such as Istanbul.



Children aged five to 18 will sit a semester that lasts until Jan. 19 at around 70,000 public and private schools, according to Yusuf Tekin, undersecretary at the National Education Ministry.



Students and teachers gathered to sing the national anthem and hold a moment of silence for lost martyrs before heading to classes.



Police put on extra patrols around schools for pupils' safety.



On Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan released a good wish message to students, teachers and families.



Also, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim made a speech at the opening ceremony of Sanliurfa Haci Abdurrahman Ozdemir Secondary School, where he emphasized the importance of investing in people by forming an education system based on a scientific foundation.



In many districts of southern Hatay province, over 17,000 Syrian students started school in 50 "temporary" education centers where 1,413 Syrian teachers are serving them.



Meanwhile, 392 children of Meskhetian Turk families, which came to Turkey from Ukraine on Erdogan's instruction, started school at Uzumlu district of eastern Erzincan province.



A group of 104 families of Meskhetian Turks arrived in Uzumlu this month as part of a settlement program initiated in December 2015. They were the last group among the five, who were brought to Turkey.



Meskhetian Turks were expelled in 1944 from their homeland -- the Meskheti region in 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.



Meskhetian Turks fled their homes during the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Ukraine. -