Public hysteria has reached such a level that even the Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, has intervened. ‘We are all earthquake victims here. South of Antakya, a mob attacked a car with clubs and axes. Photos and videos show people accused of looting being severely beaten and tortured by locals and security forces alike. Misinformation shared widely on Turkish media claims that gangs of Syrians are terrorising and stealing from Turkish earthquake victims. Members of the Grey Wolves, a far-right paramilitary organisation, have formed vigilante groups, roaming the streets wielding clubs, looking for looters. ‘Asylum seekers and illegal migrants are stealing the aid sent to the earthquake victims,’ the anti-refugee Victory party tweeted. Others direct their anger towards a softer target: the Syrians. Some Turks accuse their government of negligence before, and failures in the rescue mission after the disaster. Eight days after the earthquake, public despair and shock are turning to anger. He was not the only Syrian falsely accused of stealing and beaten. They started beating me, threw me on the ground kicking my ribs and breaking my nose with the back of their rifles.’ ‘I tried to tell them what happened with my broken Turkish but they accused me of using the cover of night to loot. ‘Some soldiers came in the night,’ he explained. His face was swollen and covered in bandages. ![]() The next morning when I went back to the street, Omar was sitting on a pile of debris overlooking his former home. But after their device picked up no breathing in the building they also left, leaving Omar running up and down the dark streets hysterically calling his two sons’ names. Local volunteers led a Chinese rescue team to the spot. Omar pleaded in tears as the soldiers walked off into the dusk. What’s the truth about the Kremlin drone attack? ‘It seems like there could be life in there but it could be a dog or some other animal,’ the commander said. Two red spots showed up on the device’s screen pointed at the family’s living room, or what was left of it. On the sixth day, Omar was able to convince three soldiers who reluctantly came and inspected the building with a thermal camera. After a while, the voices from the debris died out. The Syrian neighbourhoods of the city were the last to be visited by rescuers. They begged for rescue teams to come and rescue them but to no avail. The family listened for days to the two boys’ cries for help, unable to cut through the concrete walls. On the night of the earthquake, two of Omar’s sons, Ahmed and Jamal, were trapped in their living room as the ground floor of their building collapsed. In Turkey, he found work as a construction worker and moved to the old town of Antakya with his six children and wife. Omar and his family fled Syria eleven years ago when the fighting intensified in their hometown, Aleppo. With three of its five main columns gone, the shattered shell of the building could topple over any minute. ‘Two of my sons are still in that building but no one came to save them,’ he says, pointing to a half-collapsed building just 30 metres away. Nearby Omar Hassun and his eleven-year-old son, Mahmud, silently watch the rescue mission. Omar pleaded in tears as the soldiers walked off into the dusk Almost overcome by relief, rescuers and volunteers applauded as the ambulances drive away. They had been trapped for at least 135 hours. Almost half a million live in the Hatay region, which was the worst hit by the quakes.Īmidst the overwhelming tragedy, there are moments of joy: three elderly members of the Gezer family were brought out from the rubble in the old town of Antakya by Turkish and Thai rescuers. Turkey hosts over 3.6 million Syrians who fled their country’s civil war. Alongside the plight of the Turkish population, Syrian refugees in southern Turkey have suffered a second disaster. Hundreds of thousands people have lost their homes. The number of known casualties has passed 30,000 and tens of thousands more are injured. ![]() It’s been over a week since the devastating twin earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria and the death toll continues to rise.
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