The earthquake in Turkey, a new tragedy for refugees

ANTIOCH, Turkey (AP) — When war broke out in Ukraine, Aydin Sisman’s relatives fled to the ancient city of Antioch, in a southeast corner of Turkey that borders Syria.

They may have escaped one disaster, but they found another in their new home.

They were staying with Susman’s Ukrainian mother-in-law last Monday when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake collapsed their building and leveled much of Antioch, in an area devastated by what some in Turkey describe as the disaster. of the century.

“We have Ukrainian guests who fled the war, and they are also inside. We had no contact,” said Sisman, whose Turkish father-in-law was also trapped under the remains of the building, which was built 10 years ago.

As rescuers dug through the rubble, Sisman seemed to have lost hope.

Millions of refugees, like Sisman’s relatives, found refuge in Turkey as they fled wars and local conflicts in countries as close as Syria or as far away as Afghanistan.

At least 3.6 million Syrians have fled war in their country since 2011, arriving bit by bit or in droves and sometimes overrunning borders, seeking safety from heavy shelling, chemical attacks and starvation . Another 300,000 have arrived to escape further conflict and hardship, according to the United Nations.

For them, the earthquake was yet another tragedy, which many were still too shocked to take in.

“It’s the biggest disaster we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a lot,” said Yehia Sayed Ali, a 25-year-old university student whose family moved to Antioch six years ago to escape war. which was then raging.

His mother, two cousins ​​and another relative died in the earthquake. On Saturday, he sat outside the collapsed two-story building where he lived, waiting for rescuers to help him remove their bodies.

“There is not a single Syrian family that has not lost a relative, a loved one” in this quake, said Ahmad Abu Shaar, who ran a shelter for Syrian refugees in Antioch that had been turned into a pile of rubble.

Abu Shaar said people were looking for loved ones and many refused to leave the city, even though the earthquake left the city without habitable structures, electricity, water or heating. Many slept in the streets or in the shade of ruins.

“People continue to live in shock. No one could have imagined this,” Abu Shaar said.

Certainly not Sisman, who came from Qatar to Turkey with his wife to help reunite with his in-laws and Ukrainian family.

“Right now, my in-laws are inside. They are under the rubble (…). There are no rescue teams. I went alone, took a look and walked around. I saw bodies and we pulled them out of the rubble. Some headless,” he said.

Construction workers excavating the wreckage told Sisman that while the top of the building was solid, the garage and foundation were not as strong.

“When that collapsed, that’s when the building collapsed,” an affected Sisman said. He seemed to have accepted that his loved ones would not make it out alive.

Overwhelmed by trauma, Abdulqader Barakat stood on his feet and desperately pleaded for international help to help rescue his children trapped under concrete in Antioch.

“There are four of them. We got two out and two are still inside for hours. We hear their voices and they are responding. We need (rescue) teams,” he said.

In the Syrian shelter, Mohammed Aloolo sat in a circle surrounded by his children, who escaped from the building which initially swayed before collapsing like an accordion.

He arrived in Antioch in May from a refugee camp along the Turkish-Syrian border. He had survived artillery and fighting in his town in the central Syrian province of Hama, but said surviving the earthquake had been a miracle.

Other parents weren’t so lucky. Two nieces and their families were still under the wreckage, she said, holding back tears.

“I don’t wish that on anyone. Nothing I say would describe it,” Aloolo said.

Scenes of mourning and despair unfolded in a region that days before had been a haven for those fleeing war and conflict.

At a cemetery in the town of Elbistan, some 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Antioch, a Syrian family wept and prayed as they buried one of their own. The body of Naziha Al-Ahmad, a mother of four, had been pulled from the rubble of her new home. Two of her daughters were seriously injured, including one who lost her toes.

“My wife was good, very good. A loving, kind and good wife, God bless her soul,” Ahmad Al-Ahmad said. “Neighbors died, and we died with them.”

The graves were filling up quickly.

On the Turkey-Syria border, people were placing body bags on a truck waiting to take the remains to Syria for burial in their home country. Among them was the body of Tasneem Qazqouz, 5, the niece of Khaled Qazqouz.

Tasneem and his father were killed when the earthquake hit the border town of Kirikhan.

“We pulled it out of the destruction, under the rocks. The whole building fell,” Qazqouz said. “We worked three days to get it out.”

Qazqouz wrote his niece’s name on the bag before sending it on the truck to Syria.

He prayed as he let her go.

Say hello to your father and send him my best wishes. Say hello to your grandfather and your uncle to everyone, she sobbed. Between the destruction and the rubble, we have nothing left. Life has become very difficult.

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Titova reported from Elbistan, Turkey, and Abuelgasim from Cilvegozu, Turkey. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Antakya contributed to this report.