MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th February, 2023) After fleeing from the Civil War in Syria and building a new life for his family in Turkey, a Syrian refugee shared with Sputnik his family's ordeal during the recent devastating earthquakes that killed over 39,600 people in the country and left tens of thousands of families homeless.
Tamer Altaiar woke up around 4 a.m. (01:00 GMT) on February 6 as he usually did, because he always tried to visit the mosque next to his home before starting his working day as a taxi driver at 6 a.m.
"I just woke up and was washing my face. That's when the first earthquake happened. But the first one was not very strong. It's something normal in our area, because we had another 5.7 (magnitude) earthquake about one month ago. I held my two daughters, who were 2 and 4 (years old), in my hands to make sure they were not scared. But I didn't even try to wake up my wife and two other daughters," Altaiar, 42, told Sputnik.
However, moments later, another, much bigger earthquake shook his building so hard that the young father couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"I saw through my windows that the building next to ours was falling apart. That's when my wife woke up and started screaming. I tried to calm them down and we all started to try to get out of the building. That's when the third earthquake hit," he said.
Altaiar, his wife and their four children lived on the fourth floor of a five-story building in Kirikan in Turkey's southern Hatay province, which was one of the worst hit regions during the catastrophic earthquake.
"When we came downstairs, we couldn't find the main door that would allow us to exit the building. The main entrance to our building had already gone into the earth. I broke down one of my neighbors' doors. We went inside and found the bodies of three-four people who had already died. So I broke down another door that would allow us to leave the building through the balcony of a second-floor apartment," Altaiar said.
After assisting his wife and their four children in escaping the building, the young father also helped about 20 other children and more women to exit the collapsing structure. He was the last one to leave.
When the group reached an open space where their cars were parked, they felt another strong tremor.
"We all felt dizzy. I can't explain how it felt if you've never experienced something like this. It's also the first time I felt like this. But I knew it was something different," Altaiar said.
Fortunately, the taxi driver and his family were able to reach his minivan, which was still intact.
"We all just waited in our cars. Maybe there were five-six families in my car. About 20 minutes later, another earthquake hit. Within 20 seconds, my building was also completely gone," he said.
Although Altaiar and his family were able to come out safely from their building, others who lived in the same city were not as fortunate. His wife's mother and her four children lived in a building nearby. Altaiar found all five of them dead after the earthquake.
What made it worse was that he did not know how to break the tragic news to his wife, who was seven-months pregnant and was being treated in a hospital after getting her arm slightly injured during their escape.
"On the first day, I told her: 'they all OK and they would come to us tomorrow.' The next day, I went to check their bodies and covered them with blankets. I told my wife that her older brother had died. On the third day, I told my wife: 'I found your mother's body today.' She said: 'Oh, I still have three family members.' On the fourth day, I told her that we lost everyone (in her family). I can't lie anymore," he said.
Although many others who lived in Kirikhan also lost their family members and all of their belongings during the catastrophic earthquake, the devastation hit Altaiar and his family much harder, as they were all refugees who had fled from the hostilities in Syria to Turkey about four years ago.
Before the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Altaiar enjoyed a rather quiet life in his hometown of Homs. After completing his studies in Norway from 1999 to 2005, Altaiar returned to Syria in 2007. He tried to start a small business, build his own house, get married and settle down. Unfortunately, the war turned the young man's life upside down and shattered all his dreams of a peaceful life.
"I left my hometown around 2012 because it was completely destroyed. I moved to the area north of Homs that was close to the border with Lebanon. After staying there three-four months, the war between the Hezbollah and Lebanon broke out. The Syria opposition was cut off and I moved to somewhere near Damascus. And I then moved to Idlib, where the war between ISIS (Islamic State, terrorist group banned in Russia) and the Free Syrian Army broke out. That's when I moved to the refugee camp between Syria and Turkey in 2014," he said.
Thanks to his education in Norway, Altaiar began to work with Western NGOs offering assistance to Syrian refugees. However, that also made him a target for the local ISIS group.
"The ISIS tried to kill me. They hung me in an ISIS prison for three months, because they said I was working with American organizations that were against the al-Qaeda (terrorist group banned in Russia). I went to the prison at around 100 kilograms (about 220 Pounds) and left their prison at about 55 kilograms. For three months, I only had water and some bread. They thought I was dying. That's why they just tried to dispose my body. Luckily, I came back to life," he said.
After his horrific experiences as a prisoner of ISIS, Altaiar decided to try his best to move all of his family members to Turkey. His two oldest daughters had started to go to Turkish schools in recent years. However, the new life Altaiar worked so hard to build for his family was crushed once again, this time by the catastrophic earthquake.
"My daughter is in a boy's underwear now, because we were sleeping and had to run out of the building as fast as we could. We were all just in our sleeping clothes. Nothing more. And it's very cold here. It was -10 degrees (Celsius) (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit) yesterday. It's -3 degrees (Celcius) today," he said.
Altaiar's oldest daughter was left so shocked by the disaster that she didn't speak or eat for two days.
"Today, I tried to talk to her and asked: 'What happened?' She said: 'I'm just scared.' And she cried and said she wanted to see her grandmother. We couldn't even tell her that her grandmother was already gone. We didn't tell her because she was really close to her grandmother," he said.
Even as Altaiar tried to stay strong for his family, he admitted that he also needed someone to talk to.
"I ran from my city to northern Syria and tried to build a new life for my family. But then with the civil war and ISIS, I started from zero and brought my family to Turkey. For the last four years, I made a nice house and my children had a good life. They could go to school. Now, my life is different. My life is not starting from zero. It's starting from -10,000. When I look around, it's just destroyed buildings. What can I do?" he said.
Parts of Turkey and Syria were hit by a series of powerful earthquakes and aftershocks on February 6. The disaster toppled thousands of homes and destroyed the lives of an enormous number of people. Many of them, just like Altaiar, lost loved ones and buried their hopes of a better life under the ruins.
The death toll from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey currently exceeds 39,600. The Syrian Health Ministry has said the death toll in government-controlled areas of Syria has topped 1,410 people, while the United Nations has estimated the number of deaths in the country's northwest at 5,000.
