Gaza
Reuters
Twelve years ago, Abdel-Karim Abu Jalhoum fled war and poverty in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for safety in Turkey.
On Monday, the massive earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria killed him and his entire family.
Mother of a Palestinian man, Abdel-Karim Abu Jalhoum, who died with his family in the earthquake in Turkey, mourns at the family house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip on 8th February, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Mohammed Salem
Twelve years ago, Abdel-Karim Abu Jalhoum fled war and poverty in the Palestinian territory of Gaza for safety in Turkey.
On Monday, the massive earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria killed him and his entire family.
WE FLED WAR TO DIE IN AN EARTHQUAKE, SAYS IRAQI WOMAN MOURNING FAMILY IN TURKEY
Six years ago, Rehab Talal and her family fled the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in northern Iraq seeking shelter in Turkey, but seven members of her family died, including a week-old baby, when her parents’ house collapsed in the earthquake.
When Talal learned that the earthquake had struck the region where her parents and other family members lived, in the southeastern Adiyaman province, she rushed there, only to find a scene of devastation.
“I couldn’t find the building, the entire area was flattened,” Talal, who lives in another Turkish province, said over the phone.
The combined death toll across Turkey and neighbouring Syria from Monday’s tremor climbed above 11,000 on Wednesday.
Talal said seven of her 13-member family had died. The bodies of her father, two brothers and four nieces and nephews remained on the ground in front of the collapsed building.
“The corpses have swollen, it’s the third day, the bodies are on the street, no one has removed them,” she said. “If they don’t bury them here, we want to take them to Iraq.”
Thousands of refugees from Iraq fled into Turkey during the US-backed operation to drive out Islamic State in 2016.
Islamic State’s brutal rule, which emerged in Iraq and Syria in 2014, during which it killed thousands of people in the name of its narrow interpretation of Islam, came to an end in Mosul when Iraqi and international forces defeated the group in 2017.
“We left Iraq because we were looking for peace and safety; my sister and husband were killed. We faced a disaster there to face another one here…we fled wars to die in an earthquake,” Talal said.
– AMINA ISMAIL/Reuters
The Palestinian foreign ministry said Abu Jalhoum, his wife Fatima, and their four children, were among 70 Palestinians who had been found dead. The overall death toll in the quake has shot beyond 12,000.
“My brother went to Turkey to seek a better life away from wars and blockades here in Gaza,” Abu Jalhoum’s brother, Ramzy, 43, told Reuters as relatives and neighbours trickled into the family’s house in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday to pay respects.
“We lost the family. An entire family was wiped off the civil registration record,” he said.
Abu Jalhoum had worked as a taxi driver in Gaza but struggled to support a growing family and left in 2010 for Turkey. There, he worked in a wood factory in Antakya, and Fatima and their children joined him once he was established.
In Antakya, life was promising for the 50-year-old father, 33-year-old Fatima and their children, Noura, 16, Bara, 11, Kenzi, nine, and Mohammad, their three-year-old who was born in Turkey. Six months ago, they had moved to a new apartment, according to the family.
In the hours after the tremors, the extended family desperately tried to make contact, calling everyone who could offer any information. On Tuesday, they recognised the family in a photo showing them buried under the rubble, lifeless.
In the picture, Abu Jalhoum is seen embracing his children, seemingly trying to protect them with his own body as their home collapsed on them.
There are no exact figures as to how many Palestinians live in Turkey, but many, especially from Gaza, have in recent years moved to Turkey, fleeing a densely populated territory that has witnessed frequent wars that have left the economy in ruins.
The United Nations relief agency UNRWA estimates around 438,000 Palestinian refugees live in Syria.
The Palestinian Authority, which has a limited rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said it had sent a rescue mission to the impacted areas.
At the family house in Beit Lahiya, Abu Jalhoum’s mother, Wedad, prayed their bodies could be returned home for burial.
“I haven’t seen my son, nor his children for 12 years,” the weeping mother said, dressed in black and surrounded by neighbours.
“I want my children, I want to see them and bid them farewell.”
