(Kahramanmaras) Serkan Tatoglu managed to save his four children from the deadly earthquake that rocked their home in southeastern Turkey. The family is now safe, but her six-year-old daughter keeps asking her, “Dad, are we going to die?” »
The province of Kahramanmaras – 1.1 million inhabitants before this natural disaster – has for a week looked like a science fiction film, with its destroyed buildings, the screaming sirens of ambulances and the coffins left on the side of the roads.
PHOTO OZAN KOSE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Rescuers continue the search in Kahramanmaras, Turkey.
So many appalling scenes for the children who survived the February 6 earthquake which killed 32,000 people in Turkey, according to a still provisional report.
“My children were badly affected by the earthquake,” Serkan Tatoglu told AFP, whose wife and children aged six, 11, 14 and 15 found refuge in a village of tents erected next to the stadium. the city of Kahramanmaras.
“I lost about ten members of my family. My children are still not aware but the youngest is traumatized by the aftershocks. She keeps asking “Dad, are we going to die? “”, he confides.
“I don’t want to show them the corpses. With my wife, we hug them and tell them “everything will be fine”.
Hilal Ayar, 25, is also extremely worried about her seven-year-old son, Mohamed Emir: “He is not well mentally, he cannot sleep”.
“Emergency policies”
Sueda Deveci, a psychologist member of the Turkish branch of the NGO Doctors Worldwide, dispatched to Kahramanmaras, is confronted with parents who are themselves traumatized.
“A mother confessed to me: ‘Everyone tells me to be strong but I can’t do anything, I can’t take care of my children, I can’t even eat.’ »
Some children seem unaware of the earthquake, she says, while three are drawing beside her.
PHOTO OZAN KOSE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A psychologist cares for children affected by the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey.
“I don’t talk much about the earthquake with them. We make them draw and we will see how much it appears in their drawings, ”she explains.
“Child-focused policies need to be prepared urgently,” urges Esin Koman, a child rights protection specialist currently working in Kahramanmaras province.
According to her, children adapt more quickly than their parents, but the necessary must be done to enable them to overcome this ordeal.
Cihan Celik, a psychologist, shared on Twitter a message he received from a volunteer paramedic dispatched to the quake area.
During an evacuation, children were seized with anguish: “The injured children asked several times along the way, ‘Where is my mother, where is my father? Are you kidnapping us? ””
“Fall of calls”
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 574 children extracted from the collapsed buildings were found unaccompanied. Seventy-six of them were returned to family members.
A group of about 200 volunteers, including psychologists, lawyers and doctors, established coordination centers in the ten earthquake-stricken provinces. Their objective: to identify unaccompanied children and entrust them to their families, with the help of the police.
“We are receiving a deluge of calls,” said Hatice Goz, a volunteer from the coordination center in Hatay province (South).
In the field, it also identifies families looking for their children, collecting information on their age, physical characteristics and address before transmitting it to the coordination centres.
“We have dedicated teams. They constantly analyze all the information obtained by comparing it with hospital records,” explains Hatice Goz.
“When I looked at the list yesterday, the number of missing children we were informed of reached 180. We have released 30 to their families,” she said.
Children extracted alive from the rubble are taken to the nearest hospitals, without necessarily being accompanied by a parent. But, she notes, “if the child is unable to speak, the family cannot find him”.