One year after devastating earthquake, survivors in Turkey and Syria search for answers and plead for help – Detroit Catholic

(OSV News) – The first anniversary of the “disaster of the century” has sparked unrest and anger in Turkey, where more than 50,000 people died in a deadly earthquake that struck the country on February 6, 2023. In neighboring Syria, 6,000 people died.

In Antakya, the capital of the Turkish province of Hatay, the most affected of the 11 southern provinces hit by the 7.8-magnitude disaster, crowds clashed with the police, calling on the city's mayor, Lutfi Savas, to resign, and booing Health Minister Fahrettin Koca. Al Jazeera reported.

Rama Daaboul, a Syrian who works at the Hope Center collaborating with Caritas Poland, said it was “80 seconds of terror.” “The quake lasted a minute and 20 seconds,” she recalls, “but after that it seemed like a lifetime.”

“The ground under our feet was like a seesaw,” added Rita Melkon, a beneficiary of a program run by Caritas Poland to help families in Syria.

The quake was the largest disaster in nearly 100 years in the region, and for Syria, it was another blow to a country already devastated by a civil war that began in 2011 and was largely over by early 2023. The country was just getting started when the quake struck, turning all Something was in ruins again, survivors lamented.

The Polish branch of Caritas, part of Caritas International, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church, has allocated $4.7 million to earthquake victims in Syria and Turkey.

“The first thing I did was take my two-year-old daughter,” Daboul recalls. “I prayed to God to help us.”

Melkon recalls: “Then the aftershocks started, stronger than the first (trembling)…. Through the roar of falling stones, my daughter’s screams reached us. When we got out, the sight was terrifying.” Describing the scene, she said: “People were standing crowded in the street, it was raining in extremely cold temperatures, and young children were crying.” “The ground beneath our feet was like a seesaw.”

Sleeping mattresses and food parcels provided by Caritas Poland were part of the first relief supplies to arrive in earthquake-hit Syria, where aid was not allowed due to international sanctions on the Syrian regime.

According to the United Nations, 15.3 million people in Syria are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. More than half the population faces hunger, a number that has risen by more than 50% in the past three years. One reason for this is the 2023 earthquake.

“Syria is slowly rebuilding, but it will take years. Hyperinflation is spreading in the country, salaries are stagnant, the cost of living is rising, and the local currency is losing its purchasing power,” said Dominik Derlecki, head of the European Commission delegation. Caritas Poland in Syria and Lebanon.

Daboul from the Hope Center added, “The earthquake brought families back to the reality they were trying to adapt to.”

“The war destroyed all of our school buildings,” said Arbi Ohanian, director of the Cilicia School in Aleppo, which Caritas Poland renovated before the war. “The kindergarten section was renovated, and Caritas Poland contributed to this.” Earthquake.

“Unfortunately, the February 6 earthquake destroyed the school again, and we had to start from scratch,” Ohanian said.

A year after the earthquake, what is needed most financially is repairs to buildings, but Daaboul said people's traumas are more difficult to heal.

She said: “We need psychological help for children and adults alike, because unfortunately we cannot say that we have overcome the shock of the earthquake.”

The Caritas network provides financial and psychological assistance to families and victims of trauma. Repairs to homes and schools damaged in the earthquake and earlier by the war will continue throughout 2024 and beyond.

“Our mission, as a humanitarian organization, is to help victims of wars and disasters, especially in countries that have already been struck by fate,” said Father Marcin Izicki, director of Caritas Poland.

He added: “I am confident that thanks to the openness of donors who generously support the programs of Caritas Poland, we can help people restore decent living conditions. For their sensitivity to the needs of others, I thank them with all my heart.” .

In neighboring Turkey, although the country has not been additionally damaged by the war, relief efforts are still very few, people from the quake-hit area said on the tragic anniversary.

In Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter, there is slow progress in work to rebuild the city and rehouse the thousands still living in tents and prefabricated containers.

During the memorial service, local residents said that because of the authorities' delayed response to the disaster, many of their loved ones were left to die, trapped for days under the rubble in the bitter cold.

On February 6, just after 4 a.m., the time the earthquake struck, people chanted, “Can someone hear me?” – The echoing voices of those who lost their lives while waiting for help.

“We will not forget, we will not forgive,” the crowd declared, while charity activist Daboul in Syria added: “The wound of February 6 will never heal.”

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