Before the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the estimated number of Arabs in Turkey varied from 1 million to more than 2 million. As of April 2020, there are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, who are mostly Arabs but also include Syrian Kurds, Syrian Turkmen, and other ethnic groups of Syria. The vast majority of these are living in Turkey with temporary residence permits. The Turkish government has granted Turkish citizenship to refugees who have joined the Syrian National Army.