Two weeks on, earthquake zone still runs short of tents

By Ahmet AYVA

Two weeks after the earthquake disaster, survivors in Hatay province are still suffering from the shortage of tents. A total of 2,115 people are living in the camp made oup of 380 tents in the Beylikduzu district.

"There is a great lack of coordination. We stand in long lines for our requests. There are only six toilets here and still no facility to take a shower," said 65 year old Uncle Halil.

A district office official also acknowledges that coordination has not yet been completed:

"The coordination here has not yet been resolved. The thing that hinders us the most and makes distribution difficult is the citizens who come from outside the tent city. A big health problem is that people can not wash themselves.”

CHILDREN PULLED DEAD BODIES FROM THE WRECK

One of the most important issues of tent camps is children. We meet with volunteer teachers. They say the Red Crescent started to provide psychosocial support services for the children only 13 days after the disaster.

"A 13-year-old says he helped pull two dead relatives from the rubble and searched the wreckage for bodies. When we came the first week, families said the children could not sleep at night. But after the play tent was set up, the children began to sleep peacefully.”

In Defne, Hatay people are still looking for tents. A citizen reacts very harshly when he sees that we are shooting because he has not been able to find a single tent for days.

We encounter Ozgür Ozel, the CHP (Republican People’s Party) Group Deputy Chairman in the aid coordination center and ask him what happened in two weeks.

“What needs to be done on the first day is done after 14 days. There are still places in the city that cannot reach tents,” he says.