No one left to bury them
“She was holding her son and was not aware that he is dead”, says 38-year-old Salim*.
In the early hours of February 6th, a devastating earthquake struck southeast Turkiye, close to the Syrian border. Followed by several aftershocks, the quake killed thousands of people and left many more injured and homeless.
“I will never forget this. I was getting into the car, and I ran into a man along with his wife and injured son, I offered to take them to the military hospital in Jinderis town, in Syria. The woman was holding her son, he was not moving at all. My nephew who happens to be a pharmacist was with us, so she asked him to check on her baby, when he did he found the child dead”, he explains.
When the earthquake happened, Salim was already awake, “The ground started to shake, I started screaming and mentioning the name of god. The first shake stopped and I was still at home. I left my house with my family during the second shake, while we were leaving a wall collapsed”, he describes. Having his family with him Salim’s only concern was his brother who lived in same building. “My brother lived on the fourth flour; I thought he might be dead as I heard the building collapse. We stood in the middle of the street while it’s raining. It was so cold and we were wearing our pyjamas. I was barefoot and we barely managed to survive. That’s when I saw him with his family”, he says.
After fleeing his completely demolished town, Salim sought shelter in a nearby camp. “We are a family of eight, eating and sleeping in the same tent, with no access to a proper toilet,” he states. During the upcoming days, Salim along with his brother and other family members started searching for survivors, “We lost my cousin, my uncle and his wife, we saw many children injured, and we took them to the hospital. Dead people everywhere, bodies under the rubble. It was a very harsh day on us. We kept looking for dead bodies under the rubble from dawn to the following night. The pavement in front of the hospital was full of dead bodies covered in black bags. Some families died and have no one left to bury them”, he states wistfully.
Today, Salim and his family are surviving on the donations they are receiving from people and organizations, but they still lack many services, “we need more tents and toilets, the situation is very hard, he adds “My psychological state is not good at all. I try to keep myself together in front of my children, but I do not know how much longer I can keep doing this. My children wake up at night screaming and afraid from another earthquake”.
Add to all this, his children are now out of school with no clear dates on when they will get back, “All my children go to school, but now they are all closed, and we don’t know when will they reopen, I am worried about their future. We need this camp to be official, we need to have schools here”, he explains.
Despite the help and the support Salim is receiving, his truly wish is to have a house to shelter him and his family.
* Names changed to protect identity