“Fleeing a war and dying in an earthquake,” Saif Abukeshek, a Farmamundi volunteer, told me from the car as a team from the Fons Català de Cooperació crossed the Hatay province in southern Turkey. It is one of the areas hardest hit by the February 6 earthquakes, which also affected Kurdistan and northern Syria. Saif spoke of all the refugee families who left Syria because of the twelve-year civil war and who now see themselves doubly punished by the earthquake, which is once again making them homeless. It is estimated that of the four million Syrian refugees, half suffered directly from the earthquakes.
“When the earthquake happened, we were very scared. I don’t know how to explain it, it was hard. It was raining and people were crying, we hid in a car until the next morning,” explains Ammar Naasan, a Syrian refugee in Turkey since 2011, while sitting in front of the tent where his family of six lives in the refugee camp. Maan, in the Antakya district. “We are coming into the summer season, we need a fridge, a fan… the food is going bad because of the heat, we also need hygiene products,” he adds.
When the earthquake happened, we were very afraid. I don’t know how to explain it, it was hard. It was raining and people were crying, we hid in a car until the next morning
Ammar Naasan, Syrian refugee in Turkey
The landscape in southern Turkey is haunting: camps for displaced people every four steps, buildings standing, buildings lying in ruins or buildings being demolished. Most surprising are the tents that are informally set up along the roadside, as if it were a spontaneous decision.
“Our life was suddenly turned upside down, it was like sleeping in heaven and waking up in hell,” admits Walid Antar, a Syrian refugee in Kuçukdalyan 1 camp, also in Antakya.
According to OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), an estimated 1.6 million people still live in informal camps without having their basic needs met. In fact, it’s a feeling shared when traveling in Hatay province. There is little humanitarian movement.
However, we have met with some of the organizations that continue to work on the ground, such as ONSUR and Action for Humanity, made up of the Syrian diaspora. Both work in the areas of shelter, health, sanitation, education, food security and livelihoods, with a particular focus on north-west Syria where the impact has been most severe.
What remains after earthquakes
In the city of Antakya, where about 200,000 people lived before the earthquake, there is a lot of rubble, evidence of buildings that have collapsed due to the threat of collapse or have already been demolished. “70% of the buildings are impassable,” Saif tells me. Among the ruins, three months later, there are still remains of objects that remind us that there was life in this ruined space: slippers, clothes, blankets … Walking among the buildings that are still standing, I take sometimes a strong odor true hidden by the strong wind and our ignorance, but they tell me it is the odor of death.
Many houses are still full of things and there may still be a corpse. Everyday life frozen by destruction. Curtains in the wind protruding from the torn balconies, sofas staring into emptiness, broken pipes, lamps still hanging from the ceiling… Life stops instantly.
The landscape in southern Turkey is unsettling: camps for displaced people every four steps, buildings standing, buildings lying in ruins or buildings being demolished.
I stare incessantly at the sky, analyzing the flaws in the buildings, almost as if it were an unreal representation—shockingly cold, the brain takes a long time to grasp, process, and comprehend reality—a fourth floor without windows excites mine attention with a wooden bunk about to collapse. Will the boys or girls who inhabited this room be safe? Will they live in tents or did they manage to go to another city with a relative? And his parents? unresolved questions.
“There is a serious problem with the orphans,” explains the coordinator of the Maan displacement camp in the city of Reyhanli. They try to put her in contact with her extended family, but meanwhile there seems to be no specific protection. In a few days, together with the team I am traveling with, we will identify all the levels of needs that exist in this emergency.
long-term consequences
The situation in the region is a serious emergency. These are areas where conditions were already precarious before the earthquakes. Aid to the population in Turkey is coordinated by AFAD, the Ministry of the Interior for Disaster Management, which works with local and international organizations to channel aid to where it is most needed.
As we tried unsuccessfully to cross the Al-Hamam Pass from Turkey to Syria, we exchanged a few words with Mahmoud Hafar, the head of Jindires Municipal Council. “In one minute, 1,000 families in the city were left homeless and 250 buildings collapsed,” he said, alarmed. “7,500 families live in camps. What happens to the children? what about women You need protection. Also, there is cholera in Syria, which can spread very easily through the fields.”
It is a complex emergency where geopolitics, violence and a diverse set of needs converge, but one thing becomes clear after this visit: the people responding to the humanitarian crisis are also victims of earthquakes, they also have families and friends lost, and in some cases had to leave their homes.
Txell Escola Cruz He is part of the Fons Català de Cooperació team.
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