Faten gave birth to Loujan in Malatya but lost her husband and father of her daughter. The rescue efforts continue. The United Nations: a billion dollars of aid is needed. Over 2,800 Syrians are leaving Turkey
FROM OUR REPORTER
GAZIANTEP – Faten Al Yousifi, 39 weeks pregnant, had decorated the nursery she was expecting and had her delivery bag packed when an earthquake hit her apartment in Malatya just after 4am on Monday.
For ten hours, squatting, dazed, dehydrated and fearful for the survival of that unborn child, Faten was pulled from the rubble by a family friend, Hisham, and rescuers. I didn’t think I was still alive, she said via WhatsApp on Thursday Bbc. Rushed to hospital, underwent emergency caesarean section. And finally her little girl Loujain, which in Arabic means silver, came to light. Returning to her apartment to rescue her husband, Faten was horrified to find Burhan Al Alimi, 29, dead. His body was recovered three days later. She was in her last year of chemical engineering studies at Inonu University in Malatya.
Now Faten and little Loujan have moved to a friend in Kocaeli, closer to Istanbul. And Yemen’s ambassador to Turkey, Muhammad Tariq, has visited both. Faten and her husband moved to Turkey after the Iranian-backed Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014. Since the start of the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen in March 2015, the Yemeni community in Turkey has grown to 20,000 people. Yet even before the war, Yemenis migrated to Turkey for study and work following the Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2011. Muhammad Amer, president of the Union of Yemeni Students in Turkey says there are now more than 8,000 Yemeni students in the village. So far, he said, eight Yemenis have died in Gaziantep, Hatay, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Malatya and Iskenderun. Among them, Idris Aqlan, a 25-year-old student at Gaziantep University, was visiting Istanbul when the earthquake hit. I have experienced many difficult situations in Yemen due to the war, but this one was much more difficult, he explained. The sudden nature of the earthquake did not give people time to prepare. THEn war – on the other hand – the young man always explained, at least there is time to hide in cellars, in the desert or in the mountains.
And while the death toll from the earthquake rises to 42,000 casualties and mounts the anger among the survivors for the building abuses that would cause such a high number of deaths continues to be sought in the rubble. A 27-year-old woman was pulled alive after 258 hours from the rubble in Kahramanmaras, one of the hardest hit by the 7.8 earthquake that hit southern Turkey 10 days ago, the epicenter of which was identified right near Kahramanmaras.
On the aid front, the United Nations launches an appeal to collect international aid for one billion dollars for Turkey. The request arrived UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. The funding – which covers a period of three months – will assist 5.2 million people and allow humanitarian organizations to step up their vital support to the government-led efforts of Turkey, hit by the country’s most devastating earthquake in a century. Guterres wrote in a note. Guterres urged the international community to do more and fully fund this vital effort to respond to one of the greatest natural disasters of our time. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world and has been showing immense generosity towards neighboring Syria for years, the UN chief insisted.
A separate appeal of nearly $400 million has been launched for neighboring Syriawhere nearly 6,000 people died in government-controlled areas of Aleppo and the country’s northwest, which bore the brunt of the damage.
But there is no shortage of controversy over the slowness of the United Nations’ response especially to Syria. Another million Syrians living in Turkey are believed to have been affected by the disaster. The Turkish government has granted Syrians with temporary protection permission to travel to northwestern Syria for at least three months and a maximum of six months, explains Labib al-Nahhas, head of diplomatic assistance at the Syrian Association for the Dignity of Citizens. Syrian refugees return to northwestern Syria because they have no other choice and are not receiving significant aid and assistance. a forced return. Up to now 2,300 bodies have been returned to Syria from southern Turkey, while 2,800 Syrian citizens have voluntarily returned through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point. Syrians fear that the absence of any real effort by the United Nations to help them rebuild their lives in southern Turkey is a prelude to a forced return to regime areas, Nahhas said. Up to 120 aid trucks entered Syria on Thursday, among these 20 from the World Food Program as we were able to observe on the spot and as confirmed by Janne Suvanto, WFP aid coordinator for Northern Syria. But that’s a drop in the bucket, according to local officials. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said on Thursday that the economic toll from Turkey’s earthquake could reach $25 billion, or 2.5 percent of the country’s GDP.
February 17, 2023 (change February 17, 2023 | 10:45 am)
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