Concordia students impacted by TurkeySyria earthquake

On Feb. 6, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck northwestern Syria and southern Turkey. On Monday, rescue and recovery efforts were still bubbling when a separate 6.3-6.4 magnitude earthquake occurred.

BY TRISTAN MCKENNA // CONTRIBUTOR

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“Their building collapsed in the first earthquake… help didn’t get there for three days. When [it did], they were already gone,” said Ari Inceer, a Turkish student studying at Concordia who lost one of her childhood friends. Inceer is from Kahramanmaraş, a city hard-hit by the disaster.

Over the past two weeks, the death toll has climbed to over 46,000. Around the border between Turkey and Syria, there is a convergence of tectonic plates that makes the area seismologically vulnerable. Millions are displaced.

“I don’t know if they were alive [or died instantly]. I don’t know if they called for help,” said

Inceer, referring to her friend.

“I haven’t seen my brother, sister, mother [in years]... almost losing them, even just one of them, is so scary,” said Inceer. At a cousin’s home in Istanbul (further from the earthquake’s epicenter) her family waits for answers. Their home in Kahramanmaraş has not collapsed, but it may be unstable.

Sarah Dadouche, a Syrian student, described parents that are unable to reach dead or trapped children. “People are going crazy…They know they’re dead, but…they want to take them and bury them with their own hands.” Dadouche’s family is physically okay.

“They were very shaken. They [fled onto] the streets…I was thinking, ‘this is down in the south in [Damascus].’ If you go up to the north, it’s crazy.”

International sanctions have made getting aid to Syria difficult. “Because of the sanctions… no one [cares] about us,” said Dadouche, adding:

“My mind is with my parents, my mind is with my people… I don’t feel like I deserve to be here.”

“Sometimes you need to be like an actor [when] coming to class and deliver the content to the best of your ability; irrespective of what you feel,” said a

BY LILY COWPER

Turkish professor at Concordia who wished to remain anonymous. “You need to go on and start the show.”

Furkan Göçmez is another Turkish student. From Malatya, his home has been destroyed. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be on the streets. My family just became homeless, in like two minutes,” he said.

“I’m kind of pinching myself like, ‘oh, is this really happening?’” said Göçmez. While fleeing their building, his mother fell and broke her nose. “I don’t know pg.2 pg.5 pg.3 pg.4

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