Türkiye’s Deadly Earthquakes, Six Months Later
What Does the Future Hold for Millions of People who Have Lost Everything?
I’ve just got back from my third visit to a relief camp in Antakya, Hatay, Türkiye.
The captical city of the region of Hatay Antakya, the biblical city of Antioch, it’s a city incredibly rich in history, and surrounded by grand mountains.
Tragically; due to the earthquakes that devastated parts of Türkiye and Syria on Feburary 6th, 2023, much of Antakya has been destroyed (although, thankfully, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has started to repair some of the city most treasured buildings, mosques and churches.)
The small camp I was volunteering at offers food and water daily to hundreds of people displaced by the quakes.
The last time I was here in June, there were tent villages as far as the eye could see. Slowly, many of these tents have now been replaced with containers. We also slept in containers at our camp- with the doors wide open due to the 40degree heat. Despite having night guards at our camp, I didn’t feel particularly safe. I can’t imagine how insecure I would feel living in one.
One afternoon, during the afternoon lull after clearing up after the breakfast rush and chopping up mountains of onions and potatoes ready for lunch, our dear friend Meryem proudly walked us around the old historic market place. Known in Turkish as the çarşı (‘char-sha’), the narrow passages are beginning to tentatively hum with life again, despite the masses of rubble.
We strolled along, saying good morning to vendors and then headed to buy ingredients to make ‘Künefe’ a famous traditional Turkish dessert that involves crispy pastry, a ton of butter, and, wait for it: cheese.
On the way, Meryem stopped quickly at phone stall to get her phone screen protector replaced. Mine needing doing too, so for 50 lira, (£1.50) I got a new one too. ‘Look, it’s like we got brand new phones!’ Meryem laughed, her smile irresistible, her huge brown eyes sparkling. She was so pleased we were able to go to the phone shop she used to regularly frequent.
As we continued our stroll, she pointed out a concaved passage: ‘I used to always get my gold earrings from that store. It’s gone now. He didn’t survive’. We moved on to buy our Künefe ingredients. As we soberly walked the rest of the passages in the market; Meryem sighed: ‘I wish you could have seen the çarşı before the earthquake. It was like heaven.’
Despite the rubble and the destruction, the heavenly beauty of Hatay’s historic centre still is clear through the majestic backdrop of mountains that overshadow the city. There is also a rich variety of fragrant fruit trees that send delicious scents wafting through the hot air. There are cooing little doves that will eat bread crumbs from your hand, and, my sons favourite, little gecko lizards that dart about.
But, most of all, the beauty of Antakya is still evident through its people, and their incredible hospitality and cuisine.
Hatay’s Gastronomy has made it part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network
The food in Hatay is some of the best on the planet. Seriously. One of the chefs who runs the kitchen loves food so much, in-between the endless food prep and cooking of meals to feed 500 people a go, (in pans bigger than my toddlers paddling pool), he can’t resist knocking together little dishes and mezzes and snacks to feed the volunteers. They all so good they’ll make you weep. Local delicacies include spicy pepper flatbread, oruk (a special type of deep fried köfte) spicy pepper and walnut dip, onions with sumac, zahter salad, (a tomato, onion, and olive salad with the unique Middle Eastern spice zahter).
Cemile’s Story
I take a walk with Cemile, a mum of 4. I’ve been calling her ‘abla’ (big sister) for the last 6 months because I’ve assumed she’s older than me (probably because of the harrowing experiences she’s been through). We laugh and tease each other when we realise, in fact, I am 2 months older than her, so I’m the ‘abla’!
Every time I’ve seen Cemile over the last six months since February 6th, she has shared with me, a few more horrors of what she and her family went through when she was thrown from her bed that night.
I hope it helps her, just a tiny bit, to process what she’s been through.
Cemile showed me a video on her phone of the first time she went back to her house 6 weeks after the earthquake when the machines came to tear it down. Cemile was a renter for 20 years before she could buy that flat. After it was torn down, she had nothing left.
There’s no such things as earthquake insurance that can pay out for cities at a time.
The next sentence contains child/death triggers so skip the next paragraph if needed.
Cemile sobbed as she told me about a child she heard crying out ‘Mummy, mummy’ and how the mother, trapped nearby under the rubble, could only utter a groan in response to let her child hear her voice. Neither mother nor child made it out alive.
As we weep together and hug, Cemile deny she needs any kind of psychological support for what’s she been through because she’s alive.
What could she possibly have to complain about when hundreds of her friends, neighbours and relatives had it so much worse?
How do you Heal a Collective Trauma?
The earthquakes are a collective trauma for Hatay. The shock, and the devastation can lead to anxiety and PTSD for many because all of a sudden, the world just isn’t safe anymore. (A study showed that 24% of earthquake victims present clinical symptoms of PTSD is the first 6 months after the disaster.) Many people have told me it’s the uncertainty of the future that is so hard to bear.
People experienced the earthquakes together; and they need to heal together. The western way of doing therapy one to one won’t work in Hatay, where identity is collective rather than individual.
Social solidarity is necessary so that people can slowly move towards what is know as post traumatic growth. Post traumatic growth is when people start to be able to look to the future, and be thankful, even just a tiny bit, that they’re alive.
It can also look like starting projects, spiritual change or a new appreciation for what they have. I have seen glimmers of this some of the members of Meryem’s family. But for every glimpse of this, there are a hundred people, who’s hope is completely gone.
The people of Hatay (and countless others in other provinces or Türkiye) face continuing to live in containers with winter approaching with no electricity or running water, all the time processing horrific trauma for the loss they have suffered.
Names have been changed to protect those in this story. I’ll keep writing about the earthquake zone of Türkiye. We mustn’t forget. In the meantime, Hatay’s world class eateries are slowly opening again, so why not put it on your list of places to visit in the near future?
