The toll from the earthquake that shook southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6th continues to grow. Thousands of families are still searching for the bodies of loved ones who disappeared on the night of February 6. A terrible obstacle course.
Photos of the missing in the February 6 earthquake in Turkey are displayed at the entrances to the camps, on a pole, in the stations. A smiling couple, a young man, an old man… And all with a telephone number to communicate any information.
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In Antioch, particularly affected by the disaster, Gülten, 68, collapsed in a tent. His son Ali remains untraceable. “I spoke with the Turkish disaster and emergency management agency, with the prefect, with everyone. I asked them to search in the rubble of our building”she says.
“It took them 12 days to come and search. Maybe my son was alive all that time. But now…”
Gülten, 68, is looking for his son Aliat franceinfo
“They dragged, dragged to death. I don’t know if my son is alive, if he’s dead – I don’t know. Is there anything more painful in the world ?”asks Gülten.
The building was inaccessible, the street cluttered with rubble from other houses. Touched by Gülten’s despair, a young man, Cahit, set out to help him. “They cleared the access to the street from the building. Maybe the body of Gülten’s son was there. But they didn’t even check. They just took away the rubble. We insisted, we we cried, shouted. But nothing helped.”
A desperate quest
So Cahit accompanied her on her quest. “We took him to all the hospitals in case he was one of the injured who had no identity. We went to the cemeteries. Then we learned that there was one for the bodies not There was a tent where we could identify the bodies from photos. We had to look at hundreds of them to try to find his son. But we couldn’t find him. In the next tent, they were taking DNA samples”, says Cahit.
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“The only thing we were told was: it could take several months, keep your cell phones within reach. If we find him, we will call you”, continues the young man.
The February 6 earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey. But how many disappeared: thousands, tens of thousands? Like so many others, Gülten tirelessly retraces the thread of this nightmare night, these hours of calling a phone that rings in the void, these hours in freezing rain before reaching the town where his son lived, these days of hoping in front of a pile of rubble from which the living were taken out, then the bodies. “Every day I look at his pictures. Thank goodness they sent me pictures of him. I didn’t have any.” Today she looks at these photos from another life with a look of infinite sadness.
More than a month after the earthquake in Turkey, Gülten is still looking for his son like thousands of other families – Report from Antioch by Marie-Pierre Vérot.
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