Burak Aydin invites you to see the inside of one of the metal containers where the family lived for more than two months. The television on and the green sofa protected by a red blanket help to give an air of normalcy to a house that is not a real house, but has temporarily replaced the one destroyed by the February 6 earthquake that hit the south of Turkey and northern Syria. Here in Nurdagi, where a Kontayner Kemp, “container city” in Turkish, has been installed, more than two thousand people died and if the windmills could stand on top of the neighboring mountain range, the same cannot be said of hundreds of buildings, whose some have already been demolished, while others, which appear to have been bombed, are still standing but will also be razed for safety reasons. In some buildings, on the floors left without walls, you can see the furniture from the outside.
“I was sleeping when everything started to shake. A wall fell. Suddenly the floor started to give way. I ran away with my wife and daughter. I also managed to save my parents, thank God. But my grandparents died, an aunt too, and cousins Burak Aydin recalls, counting on his fingers as he pronounces the names of the dead. It was nine. And even as he felt safer — which is relative, since the magnitude 7.8 quake at 4 a.m. was followed by others — he went through days of despair because he didn’t know who was dead or alive, because he didn’t knew where he would spend the night. . It was the moment in Nurdagi when the first aid arrived, including the rescue teams who pulled people out from under the rubble. Some were found alive, some alive but badly injured, and most were dead. 50,000 people died in Turkey alone, most of them here in Gaziantep province. In this city at least two thousand. And also more than a hundred thousand wounded in different Turkish regions.
A girl holds Burak Aydin’s hand. It’s Aise, the daughter. Next to him is the woman, Husre, who is pregnant. “She’s a different girl. A blessing,” says Husre with a smile, dressed in a tunic in black and gray tones and a scarf over her hair, as many women do in this conservative part of Turkey, where Islam is more present. in people’s lives than in cosmopolitan Istanbul or in the capital Ankara. The couple are young and despite the tragedy they have experienced, they say they believe they will have a home again. They praise the authorities, the way the “city of containers” is organized, the speed with which it was built to take the people displaced by earthquakes off the streets, but they dream of rebuilding their lives quickly so that the baby who will be born “knows what a home, with her room, with her dolls, where she can play with her sister,” says Burak Aydin now in a trembling voice.
This 27-year-old man, with blond hair and a three-day beard, also in shades of blond, hugs his mother, who has just arrived. Kiss her on the forehead. The father also approaches. Burak Aydin invites him to take a family photo. He puts one arm on his father’s back, while the other holds Ayse on his lap. Today there are five in the picture, later there will be six. For the time being they will have to make do with two containers, and, I learn, the one on the green bench near the door from which the entire conversation takes place is that of Burak Aydin’s parents.
“Each family is entitled to one container. If there are many, they can have two. We always try to keep them together,” explained an official of AFAD, the Turkish civil protection agency. Built against the clock, as the earthquakes happened in winter, with lots of rain, even thunderstorms and temperatures well below zero at night, the city of containers in Nurdagi has 1700 of these metal structures. They all have a bathroom and a kitchen, so that families can live as normal a life as possible. “We provide food every day for those who want to cook at home, but we also have open canteens for those who prefer. All for free,” adds the AFAD employee.
One of the dramas of many of the earthquake-affected residents is that they have lost not only their homes but also their jobs. Those who had shops in collapsed buildings – and the city is still full of rubble and half-ruined buildings awaiting demolition – lost the investment of a lifetime. For others, it was the places where they worked that ceased to exist. Burak Aydin, the father of little Ayse, is lucky in this area: he works for the municipality. Incidentally, one of the city council buildings that survived the earthquake is right in front of the container city’s entrance and is decorated with a huge Turkish flag and a banner with an image of President Recep Erdogan, who has ruled the country for two years. decades, and another with the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
To cope with the various traumas, the Turkish government set up psychological support offices. “There are people who refuse to talk about what happened in the early hours of February 6. Family members died, sometimes children, and they refuse to accept it. It’s a very difficult mourning,” explains Emre Odzil, who is city containers helps as best he can. “We’re giving some priority to kids now. To overcome trauma. Lots of activities and group therapy,” he adds.
It’s Saturday and therefore there are no classes – they started again almost immediately in the affected areas – which explains how many children can be seen in the container city, especially in a kind of square where two stages have been set up. One of them has a small crowd around to watch a puppet show, with a single performer constantly changing puppets and always with a different voice for each puppet. Emanating from a nearby mosque, the voice of the muezzin calling for midday prayer (the asr, Wednesday of the day for the most observant Muslims) overlaps that of the man with the dolls, who still insists, but soon finds himself in competition with religious chants. It’s a minute or two. And no one runs away.
“This entertainment is very important for children. To make them forget their fear. To make them forget that relatives have died, sometimes a brother or sister, or grandparents or even their father or mother. But they will probably get over it. Traumas easier than adults,” explains psychologist Emre Ozdil. “There are even people here in the field where the house was saved, but they are afraid to go there and be buried by another earthquake,” he adds.
Farouk Ölçücü, a 46-year-old farmer, lost his wife and two daughters in the earthquake. The two eldest children survived. He sits with other family members on a chair outside the gray container where he lived for two months. Around two tables are several plastic chairs. Offer freshly brewed tea and some pumpkin seeds. And he tells what happened: “I woke up and the house collapsed. It all happened in the blink of an eye. I survived, but my wife didn’t. My daughters died too. The boys weren’t there and that’s why they’re alive. is immense suffering. I try to have strength. My family is my support”.
While a Turkish translator reports what Farouk Ölçücü says, his sister-in-law brings biber salcasi, spicy pastries. Traditional Turkish hospitality persists despite the tragedy and there was no shortage of people, such as Farouk Ölçucu’s family, who thanked foreign journalists for sending rescue teams. The one sent by Portugal who rescued a child from the rubble was in the province of Hatay, even more devastated than that of Gaziantep.
AFAD, Crescent Red, various foundations and NGOs have been working to minimize the daily hardship of earthquake victims, but now there is also the challenge of reconstruction. President Recep Erdogan once again came to the region and this time for a highly symbolic completion of 14 houses built in a record time of 50 days. The ceremony took place in Belpinar, not far from Nurdagi, and Recep Erdogan praised the speed with which the houses were built, offered by a company that asked for anonymity, and promised that more than half a million houses would be built in the affected areas . the earthquakes. In a rally environment – not to mention that this is a region that traditionally votes for the AKP, the Islamo-conservative party – the cheers for the president were constant. Before the arrival of Presidential favorite Recep Erdogan on May 14, Gaziantep Mayor Fatma Sahin, self-elected by the AKP and former Minister of Family Affairs, told foreign journalists that “these houses built in record time are an example of our determination. They were built in less than 75 days and delivered to the people. We will continue to build. These are for women who we are also helping to commit to organic farming to rebuild their lives.”
The Turkish president, after recalling the more than 50,000 deaths in the country from the February earthquake, told the crowd in Belpinar that “in line with our determination, we are building 650,000 new houses in the earthquake zone. delivering 319,000 of these homes in the space of a year”. Recep Erdogan added that during his recent visits to the earthquake zone, ceremonies for new houses were held in all cities: “We have started building more than 105,000 houses so far. We have laid the foundations for almost half of them” , he said. Chairman [que depois interrompeu a campanha uns dias devido a uma gastroentrite].
Near the new houses to be completed, an AKP poster could read: “Dogru zaman, dogru adam”. Translated it means “At the right time, the right man”. We are two weeks away from the elections and the process – credit to the Turkish state – has not forgotten to guarantee the right to vote for those who will live in tents or containers in the near future. We will know who is the right man at the moment on May 14 or two weeks later whether there is a need for a second round.
DN traveled at the invitation of the Turkish Embassy
Source: DN
