On Tuesday, on the seventh day of the devastating forest fires in Turkey, the Turkish armed forces sent 400 soldiers, four army helicopters and fire-fighting equipment to regions particularly affected by the forest fires to support the 5200 civilian forces.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, 137 of the 150 forest fires are under control and mostly extinguished.

In some places, however, the situation is getting worse.

The mayor of the city of Milas near Bodrum, Muhammet Tokat, announced on Twitter that the conflagration was rapidly approaching the city and a power station.

Rainer Hermann

Editor in politics.

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So far, eight people have been killed as a result of the forest fires.

According to the government in Ankara, at least 950 square kilometers were victims of the flames, which is the size of Berlin.

After criticism of the government grew in Turkey for not asking for help from the European Union (EU), it requested it on Sunday.

At the beginning of the week, three fire-fighting planes arrived from Croatia and Spain.

The EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Protection, Janez Lenarčič, said the EU was "on the side of Turkey at this very difficult time".

Other extinguishers came from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Iran.

An ash-covered gray cemetery

Ships are still on duty off the Mediterranean coast in the event that evacuations are required. At the weekend, more than 1,100 people were brought to safety in Bodrum because the roads were no longer passable. A reporter for the newspaper Hürriyet wrote that walking through the cremated landscapes reminded him of the pictures from Hiroshima. What was once green in nature is now an ash-covered gray cemetery.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under fire because the country's fire-fighting planes were no longer operational due to inadequate maintenance. Outrage has sparked on social media that Erdogan merely threw tea bags to the residents during a visit to Marmaris. Under the hashtag # TürkiyeYaniyor (Turkey is on fire), a large nationwide aid campaign for the affected regions has been running since the first days. Meanwhile, a leading journalist close to the government has accused the opposition CHP of being responsible for the forest fires in a “very dirty alliance”. Opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu is a "national security risk". He then filed a complaint.