Millions of people are living in tents and informal settlements across earthquake-hit areas in Turkey. It has recently emerged that the Turkish Red Crescent sold tents to the earthquake victims after the quake. As a result, there are thousands of people who could not find any shelter, even a tent, in freezing weather conditions.
Among them are hundreds of unaccompanied children rescued from collapsed buildings whose parents are dead or missing. Radical Islamist networks are exploiting these children with the help of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime at a time when they most need support and protection. Erdogan’s government is also trying to break the solidarity efforts of the progressive organisations and block volunteers’ access to the region as they have been providing shelter and aid to the victims.
Heavy rainfall and storms on 15 March resulted in flooding in Adiyaman and Sanliurfa, which were already devastated by the tremors, aggravating the situation for vulnerable people living in the region.
Almost 50 days after the catastrophe, people are still desperately looking for their loved ones whether alive or dead and it is believed that there are still tens of thousands of corpses under the rubble.
Photo ©European Union, 2023 (Begum Iman)
