Gelsenkirchen/Hatay.
The Turkish province of Hatay was devastated in the earthquakes. Donations from Gelsenkirchen benefit children. Our reporter experiences this on site.
Little Emre is holding an empty yoghurt pot and is patiently waiting for his turn. The scent of the fresh lentil soup quickly spread through the district, and more and more children and adults came to take a scoop or two and a loaf of bread with them. Volunteers prepared the food from donations brought here from all over Turkey and from many corners of the world. Emre gratefully accepts the warm meal and disappears into a tent – his home – with a smile.
All around there are countless buildings in rubble and ashes, excavators are carrying away unimaginably large amounts of rubble – in between there are always clothes, toys, books, family photo albums, the remains of a previous life, the rubble of a destroyed homeland.
The earthquakes that shook large parts of central eastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023 and in the days and weeks that followed destroyed large parts of provinces such as Hatay. Tens of thousands of people have died under the rubble of their homes, countless have fled their homes with what little they have left and sought refuge with relatives across Turkey. At night, these places look like locations from apocalyptic horror films. There are no lights on in any house, no one sleeps in the buildings. People prefer tents because they are afraid that another tremor this time could bring down their house too, burying them under it.
Daily struggle with the consequences of the earthquakes
Those who stayed struggle daily with the aftermath of the region’s worst natural disaster that people here can remember. In minutes, her world changed forever. Just like that of Cem A. The young man made it out of the apartment with his sisters and his mother unharmed when the ground shook and knocked over cupboards and shelves in their apartment. They stood in their nightgowns in the freezing cold of February 6 as houses collapsed around them. Friends, neighbors, women, men, children screamed for their lives.
Cem took his family to safety, only to start looking for his fiancee and her family. “The cell phone network collapsed, the streets were like a battlefield,” the young man recalls. With great difficulty, he drags himself a few kilometers to the six-story house where his fiancée and her family live. “By the time I got there, it had already collapsed like a house of cards.” Cem’s fiancee is alive, she made it out of the house in time, but she is desperately looking for her siblings, her parents, her uncle and his family.
With the few everyday objects that Cem can find in the minutes and hours after the quake, he will still be able to rescue two of his fiancee’s siblings from the rubble. Both suffer serious injuries and are still being treated in hospitals more than a month later. The doctors will soon have to remove a leg from one of the children.
For the father of the family, any help comes too late, the mother can free her after several hours, but she quickly succumbs to the consequences of her injuries. Cem’s fiancee loses other family members, all of whom lived in this house. Cem, his fiancée, relatives and friends – they all mourn, are marked forever.
Sadness, anger and hope in Samandag
There is nobody here in Antakya, in Defne, in Samandag and the many, many other towns and villages who has not lost at least one close relative or friend. They are angry and complain that the state aid workers came much too late, some are desperate, many are at a loss. But there are also the many who, despite or precisely because of this, help out, who want to build a new life, a new home, a future – in the midst of this tremendous destruction.
These include “Egitimsen”, the teachers’ union, which teaches children in Samandag and many other cities who are longing for a little normality in makeshift tents. There are the play hours, where teachers and psychologists volunteer time with preschool– and elementary school children and try to process what they have experienced in a playful way.
Children, like little Emre, who just picked up a warm soup and now lives with his family, very close to the tents of the teachers’ union. For him and for all other age groups, they have collected books here, provided pens and pads and much more. “We are very grateful,” says local union leader Cunneyt Kayikci, sipping black tea from a small paper cup and looking down at the devastated city.
Support from Gelsenkirchen and from the FUNKE media group
Grateful because he and his colleagues receive support from many volunteers “so that we can help the children even better. With the donations from Gelsenkirchen we will now be able to offer our children even more and implement further projects. For example, we will offer the children and young people theater and chess courses, we will be able to expand our tutoring and play psychology offerings, and we will buy teaching materials for the most needy,” Kayikci lists what the teachers’ union intends to do with the money raised after a call for donations from Ender in Gelsenkirchen Ulupinar and Sinan Sat came together.
The FUNKE media group, to which the WAZ belongs, is also one of the many donors. Support is also given to students who would otherwise no longer be able to afford to study, and containers are also to be purchased because they offer more space and comfort than the tents in which the teachers’ union is forced to offer their projects at the moment.
Every night is followed by a morning
“It has to go on somehow,” says Cem A. in a calm, deep voice while sipping his black tea. “I don’t know how exactly, but it has to go on so that we, so that the children, so that Hatay has a future.” Cem, his friends who are still there and a few relatives sit at a small table for quite a while roadside. Behind them, some cats climb into the wreckage of a wrecked car. And then it gets dark again, night falls, an eerie stillness and darkness settles over the city.
People lie down in their tents knowing that every night is followed by a morning. And then they will continue to clear away rubble, cook and distribute food and try to give children like Emre a new normal life.
More articles from this category can be found here: Gelsenkirchen
