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Turkey’s Gaziantep goes from a refuge to a site of devastation | Earthquakes News

Gaziantep, Turkey – When Kasem al-Abrash felt the ground shake under his feet, his mind immediately returned to his hometown of Idlib in northern Syria.

He fled from there to Gaziantep, across the border in Turkey, in 2020.

But on Monday morning, like millions across southern Turkey and northern Syria, al-Abrash awoke to the heavy tremors of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit a wide area. bigger and leaving death and destruction in its wake.

“I realized, oh no, I was actually supposed to be in a safe place, in Turkey,” al-Abrash said.

He immediately ran down the building when part of his apartment collapsed.

His thoughts immediately turned to his family and friends still in Syria, where the earthquake also destroyed countless lives.

“In Syria, I learned to deal with situations like this, but I never thought I would have to relive that trauma again,” Al-Abrash said.

He’s not the only one who came to Gaziantep to seek refuge, only to be taken aback by Monday’s earthquake.

When 21-year-old law student Karina Horlach wakes up early in the morning in her bed shake wellshe had flashbacks of the last time she was in Ukraine.

“It was February, and exactly a year ago, I was woken up by that very bed shaking,” Horlach told Al Jazeera, in a panicked voice. “But then I realized I was not in Ukraine. It took me a while to understand what was going on.”

Horlach was enrolled in an Erasmus student program in Gaziantep.

She had the opportunity to escape the war in her country and settle down as a temporary refugee in a supposedly safer environment.

She never expected to have post-traumatic memories of Kharkiv, her hometown, in the city that had sheltered her for the past six months.

“I think I got hit by an air strike again,” Horlach said. “It gives me flashbacks of my hometown.”

Ruins at Gaziantep
Aftershocks were felt throughout the day in Gaziantep, one of them nearly as powerful as the original quake. [Abdulsalam Jarroud/Al Jazeera]

Memories of Syria

Gaziantep, one of the major cities in southern Turkey, has a population of almost two million, and between a quarter and a third of them are Syrian Refugees.

Sawsan Dahman, 50, lives in the same building as al-Abrash. When the sky started to shake, she ran down the street with her family of four children.

She desperately sought a safer shelter as the cold air, rain and snow whipped her face.

Dahman said she immediately thought of the large mosque located in 100 Yil Park, a green area near the city center, where she saw local Turks waiting for help.

She immediately contacted her Syrian contacts through various WhatsApp groups to notify them of the safe haven.

“Usually, because of the language barrier, Arabic speakers here are left behind in emergency situations,” says Dahman. “I want to fill that void.”

aftershock chaos

In just a few hours, Dahman became a point of reference for the Syrian community in Gaziantep, as well as for women in any background who find themselves alone.

As a widow, Dahman was faced with raising her children alone on the journey from her home in Damascus to Turkey.

But as she spoke from the communal prayer room in the early afternoon, a massive aftershock rocked the mosque.

With eyes of horror, Dahman embraced her children – aged 17 to 23 – as flashbacks of the war in Syria began to overwhelm her.

For others, it was the more immediate memory of the previous earthquake that sent them running.

The tower shook, in danger of falling over the crowd. A child was hit by a car, in the middle of a storm, everyone gathered to help the girl.

People gather in a park outside a mosque in Gaziantep
People have gathered in open spaces for shelter as they fear more aftershocks [Abdulsalam Jarroud/ Al Jazeera]

Amid despair and adverse weather, people have found temporary communal shelters where they can, some wrapped in blankets inside makeshift tents on park benches. Others took shelter inside cafes – a few dared to open – sitting in circles around electric fireplaces.

Wrapping her arms around the fireplace, Izzat Umman, a 24-year-old economics student, thinks about the shock of waking up with a pile of books falling on her head.

“I didn’t know what was going on, I just ran into the street, saw other people running,” he said. “We have never experienced anything like this here. One minute feels like 15.

Already battered by unusually bad weather conditions, Gaziantep was not prepared for such an emergency, he added. “It came so suddenly that we are still in shock.”

As the days passed, the aftershocks did not stop and came suddenly, leaving Gaziantep always fearful of the next earthquake. The traumatic experience will resonate with many people for a long time to come.

Many people have now fled the city by car or bus when the airport is closed.

Strolling around the ruins of buildings and streets he had once memorized, al-Abrash saw an image his eyes were bitterly familiar with.

“We have had to deal with traumatic experiences from the Syrian conflict. Now that we are a few kilometers from the border, it seems history has repeated itself. And we will have to deal with another trauma.”



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