Survivors of the Syrian earthquake in Turkey have nowhere to go

Somewhere among the wreckage of the apartment building in Kahramanmaras where he stayed with his brother’s family are Jamal’s jacket, wallet, phone and identity papers. They are all he has left. Friends rescued Jamal, a young refugee from Syria who has made Turkey his home for the past five years, from the collapsed building hours after the first earthquake. Days later, rescue workers recovered the bodies of his brother and four children. Jamal spent a week in the hospital, with injuries to his back and legs, and then returned to rummage through the rubble for his valuables.

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Syrians are no strangers to destruction, displacement and the burial of their loved ones. The 3.7 million people who settled in Turkey in the past decade, after fleeing the deadly war in Syria, hoped they would spare their children the same fate. Many of those hopes were dashed on February 6, when two earthquakes struck southern Turkey, home to nearly half of the country’s Syrian refugees, killing at least 45,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians, as well as their Turkish neighbors, have lost everything again.

The path of destruction extends for 500 kilometers, with some towns and villages completely wiped out. A cloud of yellow dust as a result of excavations and the collapse of a new building envelops Kahramanmaraş. Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, not by rescue teams returning home, but by excavators. Across the region, more than 200,000 buildings have been destroyed, damaged, or slated for demolition. The World Bank estimates the cost of the damage at more than $34 billion, or 4% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Earthquakes have destroyed the lives of millions of people. At least 1.5 million are homeless, forced to sleep in tents, or relocate to other parts of the country. Much of the local economy has stopped. On the eve of the earthquake, Antakya, an ancient city on the Mediterranean Sea, was home to some 400,000 inhabitants; Now only a part remains. In the center of the old city, streets have turned into valleys surrounded by walls of rubble mountains. Aftershocks destroyed some buildings that had survived the first earthquakes.

Syrians in Turkey have been disproportionately affected. Turkish survivors can try to rebuild their lives and look for jobs elsewhere. However, Syrians cannot leave the areas where they are registered. Those found doing so are at risk of deportation. Some say they hope to find work when reconstruction begins. But hundreds of thousands of them are now homeless, unemployed and stranded. Ahmed Diab, a refugee who has spent the past decade in a container camp south of Kahramanmaras, used to make ends meet by doing odd jobs in the city. “But there is no work now,” he says, “and we have nowhere to go.” “We will not survive without any support.”

Some refugees complain that it took rescue teams days to reach Syrian neighbourhoods. But that was the case in much of the region. Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has faced growing outcry over delays in responding to the emergency, which may have claimed thousands of lives.

When it comes to earthquake assistance, refugees do not seem to face discrimination on an official level. Syrian survivors are entitled to the same one-off grants of 10,000 liras ($530) and 3,000 liras monthly rent subsidies as those for Turks. Tents are distributed equitably. But many refugees see signs of escalating hostility. Syrians are routinely accused of stockpiling emergency aid or looting abandoned homes. In the tent camp of Nordağı, another ruined town, fighting broke out after a group of Turkish refugees demanded they return to Syria. Some Syrians say they have been pushed out of lines while waiting for help, or have been told by potential Turkish landlords that refugees are not welcome as tenants. However, others say the disaster brought both sides together. In the container camp near Kahramanmaras, Syrians displaced by the war live alongside Turks displaced by the earthquake. “There is no racism here,” says Diab.

Some Syrians have given up on life in the earthquake zone, at least for the immediate future. More than 40,000 people have traveled to rebel-held northern Syria since the earthquake, though many more will likely return. Jamal has another plan. Once he finds his identity card and savings, he will leave Kahramanmaraş forever, moving to Istanbul. “They will send me back to Syria if they catch me,” he says, referring to the Turkish authorities, who have deported thousands of refugees over the past few years, often for petty crimes or for not having the right papers. “But there is no future here,” he says, looking out over the ruins of his brother’s house. “I don’t have anything to lose.” ■

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