Earthquake in Turkey and Syria - Personal reflection

It is not Edinburgh Castle or Cologne Dom, it is the medieval citadel of Aleppo in northern Syria. The citadel that a variety of diversified people had lived in since the middle of the 3rd millennium BC and never sanctioned any visitor or refugee over history. It always stood over centuries against the odds and so did the people of it. I keep reflecting on the time when I visited it for the first time and was shocked of the massive scale of it and that was exactly the moment I realised why it’s believed to be one of the world’s largest and oldest castles.

This 7 year old girl though in the photo is not playing hide and seek with her younger little brother, as my 4 year old daughter and I were playing this evening, this girl and her brother were stuck for 17 hours under the rumble of one destroyed building in one of these towns around Aleppo trying to save him by her hand after the historic 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on 6th February, which was not enough of a compelling tragedy to be followed by two further earthquakes of 6.5 and 7.5 magnitude that dark morning.?Sadly, this girl and her brother are not exceptions but very much common with hundreds of similar fully destroyed inhabited buildings over their families. Children might still be there under the rumble hoping and praying to be survived.

???

Tens of thousands have lost their lives and millions of people who found themselves without shelter in a very cold winter, and with minimum resources in a very politically complex location. It is just horrific!

Similar to many other organizations, UNICEF listed down what these families and children immediately require of basic resources, but, as Syrian first I know that, the people there need empathy, they need simple honest words and reflections from us, they need to feel included again, they would like to feel they are not sanctioned because of their nationality and their political different affiliations, they need to feel they are just equal human again.??

If you want to give a hope for those who have severely been impacted and would like to donate, these are some of the sites you might find helpful:

• Monitoring | Disasters Emergency Committee (dec.org.uk)
• Red Cross and Red Crescent appeals for Turkey and Syria

Let's all do our part for those who are in most need now!