Aslihan Cavasoglu has spent the past six days grieving for lost relatives by camping in a small building in a park in the Turkish city of Antakya with his family. All she wants to do now is leave her earthquake-ravaged hometown.
“I lost my two sisters, brother and mother in the earthquake. Most of my family is gone. Save us from here, we have nowhere to go. I don’t know how we will get out of here.” told Reuters.
Aslihan, her husband and their three boys fled their home and arrived in the park soon after the quake struck early Monday, and have stayed there ever since, taking refuge in a small one-story building they share with several other families. sharing with.
They sit and sleep on mattresses laid out on the floor, and rely on food and water brought by aid workers to the park, where more than 500 people have taken shelter and are living in tents and single-storey buildings.
The park appeared to be under construction before the earthquake and aftershocks. Now it has become a camp for the homeless, but life there is tough.
There is a pile of filth along with a pile of garbage in the playground. The air smells of garbage and bonfires are lit all day long as families try to stay warm from the heavy smoke.
Crates of food and water bottles arrive at the entrance to the park, along with donated clothing from across the country.
The building where Aslihan and her husband lived was one of the few survivors, but they said they didn’t feel safe entering it when they had nowhere else to go.