(Gaziantep) In the earthquake-hit Turkish city of Gaziantep, temperatures dropped to -5 degrees early in the morning on Thursday. Despite the cold, thousands of families, too frightened or prevented from returning to their homes, are living in their cars and makeshift tents.
Parents walk the streets of Gaziantep, a city near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck the country on Monday, and whose death toll exceeded 15,000, carrying their children in their arms wrapped in blankets to warm themselves from the cold from their tent.
“When we sit down, it’s painful, and I’m scared for everyone trapped under the rubble,” said Melek Halici, who watches rescuers work late into the night.
PHOTO ZEIN AL RIFAI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A family stands near a vehicle in Gaziantep
“We’ll end up going to the tent, but I don’t want to,” she adds, carrying her two-year-old daughter in her arms. “I can’t stand the cold, any more than I can stand the idea of going back to our apartment.”
The city authorities have banned thousands of residents from reaching their buildings, deemed still too risky due to the aftershocks that rock the region every day.
“Our children are frozen”
Around the Halicis, smoke from dozens of fires fills the night air. Supermarkets and other businesses provide families with pallets of firewood.
Among the survivors, some have taken refuge with neighbors or relatives. Others have left the region. But many have nowhere to go.
PHOTO ZEIN AL RIFAI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Young children are exposed to very cold temperatures without shelter in Gaziantep.
Gyms, mosques, schools and other stores took them in for the night. But beds remain rare, and thousands of people spend their nights huddled inside a car, whose engine keeps running and releases a little heat.
“I have no choice,” admits Suleyman Yanik, sitting in his car alongside a child playing with the steering wheel. His wife and another child are sleeping in the back seat. “The smell is horrible, but we can’t go home,” he adds.
Burhan Cagdas has been sleeping in his car since Monday as his family is “psychologically” not ready to return to their home. How many more nights will they spend outside? This restaurant manager does not know it, but doubts the ability of his people to hold on for a long time.
Here, many people grumble at the government’s handling of relief operations. Visiting the region on Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged “shortcomings”, but insisted on the scale of the disaster which he said would put any government in difficulty.
Near a castle dating from the VIe century, badly damaged by the earthquake, destitute families confide that the authorities did nothing for them.
They built makeshift shelters using tarpaulins and wood thrown away by others. “They could have at least given us tents,” criticizes Ahmet Huseyin.
“Our children are frozen,” adds the 40-year-old father of five, whose house next door was virtually destroyed by the earthquake. “We had to burn the park benches and even some of the children’s clothes. There was nothing else”.
For Emel Osman, a 14-year-old whose family fled Syria for Turkey seven years ago, the authorities should have set up a tent, “at least for the children”.
If stones from the castle risk falling on the park where the families have taken refuge, the latter say they have no other choice, having no car or other shelter.