Between ruins and reconstruction

Two years ago, a heavy earthquake shook Turkey and parts of Syria. Tens of thousands of people died. The aftermath can still be felt today. But hope is also growing with the reconstruction.

Children play between containers. In the perception of the younger people, life has always taken place in a container village of the state disaster protection Afad, here outside the Turkish city of Antakya.

After all, it doesn't dust quite as much as elsewhere. In some places, debris is still being removed, in many places it is rebuilt. In addition, the smoke is apparently wild waste incineration. The air is thick, dusty, biting. And toxic, says the doctor Ali Kanatli. He means the building material Silika, which is supposed to make concrete firmer. The silica dust, says Kanatli, penetrates the lungs and can cause cancer.

More Conjunctivitis and Lung diseases

According to a current measurement, the silica values ​​in air are six to seven times higher than the permissible maximum value of the World Health Organization, says Kanatli. There are more conjunctivitis than normal. And, worse, much more lung diseases and cases of allergic asthma that would have to be treated in the hospital.

But even if people go to the hospital: there are too few beds and no intensive care unit. The beds are also urgently needed for other sick people. According to Kanatli, cases of high blood pressure increase, as well as heart attacks. “Young heart attacks”, Kanatli calls her, even with 40- and 50-year-olds. Even normal flu infections have become serious diseases. Instead of a week or two, the infections continued more than twice as long. But how can you recover when an entire family lives in the container on 20 square meters, Kanatli asks – and does not expect an answer.

In addition to the health also the psychological stress

We sit in the Ayhan Kara office, member of the largest Turkish opposition party Chp. He is not a psychologist, but as a medium -sized employer close to his people. He gets what is going on with them.

The psychological situation of people is getting worse and worse, says Kara: “Look at how many people are psychologically supported. Look at the condition of the people who take psychotropic drugs. Look at the streets, traffic: people are people irritated, shortly before that to attack each other. ”

Refik Karacayli from the aid organization Hayata Destek (“Help with Life”) is tense. His organization receives money from Germany, among other things, from the Diakonie.

Many people are exhausted, says Karacayli. But also full of hope, because new houses are being built. But a lot is uncertain: whether you will soon have a new apartment, whether and how to proceed with work, whether torn families come together again. The women of many men in Antakya are waiting for a possible return with the children in other cities.

Karacayli thinks all of this stresses: “People can get rid of this stress anywhere. There are no theater, cinemas or concert halls, offers for children and activities so that they develop psychosocial, social areas at all.”

Small dreams and deep -seating grief

Back in the Afad container village. We get to know Fatma. She is in late 20th. She has three children with her husband. An aid organization offers a sewing course in a container. For Fatma, the course hours are a small escape from everyday life. And the course gives her hope for a better future.

“I sewed a kimono, but he was too short. A cousin bought it. It was the first thing I sold,” says Fatma. She hopes that she can continue. Do something and sell it. “Yes, I have dreams,” says the young woman.

A dream has already come true for Ceylan Bahcecioglu. Together with other women, she opened a small restaurant for home cooking on a recently busy street in her quarter. It's going well. But that does not help over the deep -sitting grief with her and most others, even two years after the earthquake. “Antakya is dead,” says Ceylan. “Imagine that at home, where I lived up to my 38th year of life, disappear.”