Ozgur’s rescue worker in Antakya, a city center devastated by a tsunami in Turkey, spokeswoman Janechir Ozgur told AFP
Tens of thousands of buildings have been destroyed. Many residents of the hardest-hit areas, including Antakya and the satellite villages around Gaziantep, have fled to areas like Gaziantep’s city center that remain comparatively unscathed.
He says that in Gaziantep they don’t have a way to plan, no money, no credit cards, and no food. He went to a gas station that day to see if they would give him something to eat or drink. He came back with an empty cup.
He asks to be identified only by his first name because he is still an active member of the Turkish military and risks punishment if he criticizes the government.
Many hundreds of people in these camps are from villages surrounding the cities of Gaziantep and Hatay. In villages such as Nurdagi, Islahiye and Pazarcik, small satellite districts, entire streets and neighborhoods have collapsed into rubble.
A rescue worker named Ozgur told his team late Thursday night that they wouldn’t find anyone alive under the rubble. He works in construction for a large holding company and is afraid that his assistance will not be approved if he goes public, so he only asks to be known by his first name.
“There are 30 to 40 people under there,” he says, pointing to a collapsed six-story building in front of him. “But none of them are going to come out alive.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1155955553/turkey-earthquake-gaziantep-displaced-people
Families of Kurds displaced by AFAD have been in trouble since the 2010 earthquake: A grieving family in Antakya, Turkey
AFAD has said it has deployed dozens of food trucks and hundreds of thousands of meals, but opposition politicians and members of the public have widely condemned the organization’s response.
Faris’ family is unable to access the bathroom because the stadium lacks enough facilities for hundreds of people.
He and his mother, three sisters, brother and brother-in-law all have deep purple circles under their eyes, and are covered in wounds from falling rubble. Their hands are covered in deep gashes from where they dug each other out from their collapsed home, their feet cut from when they finally made it out and had to find their way through the rubble in the cold without shoes.
They were told by police in Antakya that they had to evacuate, and that they could find shelter and food in Gaziantep. Now, Faris says he regrets the decision to come.
There, several Kurdish migrant families have set up the tents they usually use during the planting season. The farmer who organized the field’s move claims he and other farmers were abandoned by the government. The earthquake damaged a lot of the homes in their neighborhood of Sekiz Subat, which is less than 2 miles away.
Hayat Gezer, a member of the group with a traditional Kurdish tattoo on her chin and a black headscarf, says the group is grappling with legal problems. She says many members of their community have been imprisoned for crimes ranging from theft to aiding and abetting terrorism.
Southeastern Turkey is a heavily Kurdish region, and the Turkish government has been involved in a four-decade-long conflict there with the armed separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). This has led to persecution of many Kurds for alleged links to the group.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1155955553/turkey-earthquake-gaziantep-displaced-people
The Gaziantep Supersoup: A Warming Food for the Depressed Camp Camp Against Warfare and Adiabaticity
The desperation in this camp is clear. At one point, a young man tries to take bread from his neighbor’s tent; a violent fight ensues. The young man is going to be held back.
Hunger and cold makes those in the camp highly critical of the Turkish government. Faris says he voted previously for Erdogan, who is up for reelection this year, but the soldier vows he never will again.
A mother and daughter just picked up some soup from a volunteer chef. They cook the soup in metal cauldrons. Because gas and electrical service has been knocked out throughout the area, the lentil soup is bubbling over in pots that sit on cinder blocks over open wood fires.
It’s a traditional dish in the area around the city of Gaziantep which has some 2 million residents. That’s just one of the reasons for its popularity.
It’s a supersoup during a humanitarian disaster. It warms the displaced, fuels rescue crews and serves as a comfort food for residents traumatized by the disaster, even those whose homes survived. They can’t cook at home because of the destruction of gas and electric lines from the earthquakes.
Faruk Izi is the director of the kitchen where Bozkurt oversees the lentil soup. He says that when so many people lost their homes or were scared to return, two things were essential.
Someone said that the most important thing people need is hot. Therefore we started to cook soup,” he says. “We offered lentil soup and tea. It is very important in this cold weather to have soup and hot food.
The soup kitchen is built to strict construction standards, and did not sustain any damage. The worst thing that happened was that some of the soup spilled.
Datekin makes a timer for the lentils he mixes with a blender with melted butter and the tomatoes he heats up
Dağtekin, a chef for 30 years, says there is no need for him to set a timer. He told them to boil it for a while. They’re done when the lentils are soft. Then he mashes them with a long immersion blender that looks more like a power drill than a cooking utensil.
Meanwhile, in another pot he heats up cold-extracted olive oil – that’s a process that reportedly retains more nutrients. Chefs say they use melted butter for this step. He put ground pepper, bay leaves, and cumin in the oil. Let the spices seep into the oil but don’t let it get too hot, he says. Then he adds some tomato paste into the oil and spices.