Multicultural Association of Perth Huron offering Earthquake relief and immigration support in Turkey

Members of the Multicultural Association of Perth Huron have joined forces with an international relief organization on the ground in Turkey to offer relief and immigration support this week to those most affected by the pair of earthquakes that devastated parts of that country and Syria at the beginning of February.

Speaking with the Beacon Herald via video chat from the Turkish Province of Hatay, one of the regions most heavily damaged by the Feb. 6 earthquakes, multicultural association executive director Geza Wordofa and association settlement co-ordinator Asil Hamid said they’d spent the week visiting displaced families living in tents, bringing them food and supplies donated by Stratford-area residents, and helping those who want to resettle in Canada fill out immigration and refugee paperwork.

As they traveled through the region, Hamid said there were many refugees from Syria and Iraq who had arrived in Turkey before the earthquakes hit who were forcibly removed from their homes so displaced Turkish citizens could be sheltered.

“The Turkish people, they kick them from their houses in order to let the Turkish people stay in them,” Hamil said. “They let them stay in tents outside. They kicked them out of their houses, their apartments, and they told them, ‘You are strangers. We don’t want to accept strangers, so you stay outside and people will stay in your house.’”

With the help of Hamil as a translator, Mohamed Mekiyah, an Iraqi refugee living in Turkey who’s helping the multicultural association with their work on the ground, told the Beacon Herald he had been living in a tent without running water or heat since the earthquakes destroyed his home.

And Mekiyah is not alone.

Through video chat, Wordofa took the Beacon Herald on a tour of a tent that, pitched between buildings that had been reduced to rubble, serves as the home to family of at least six Syrian-born refugees, five of whom are young children. While outside the tent, there are several expensive-looking chairs and layers salvaged from the wreckage of nearby building, the family has done its best to make the interior of their temporary living space feel like home, laying down carpets and mats for beds, hanging up washing to dry and placing a few pieces of furniture around the small space to use as storage for clothing and other possessions.

“It is very, very disturbing. Our heart is broken,” said Peter Bhatti, a volunteer with relief organization International Christian Voice who joined the multicultural-association team in Turkey. “When we are seeing the damages, it is unimaginable. … When you see it physically in person, there are no words to describe the damages done. … As Canadians, we have to respond very quickly and positively and help the people. We’ve met a few families here who are living in the tents with no food, no home. They are looking to us for how we can help them there.”

While the support brought to Turkey by association volunteers and other international relief organizations is welcome and much needed, Hamil and Wordofa said the most important piece of the puzzle is for the Canadian government, and governments around the world, to expedite the approval of immigration and refugee applications. As the weather in Turkey begins to cool, Hamil said the temporary, outdoor shelters soon won’t be enough for those who have been displaced from their homes.

“It’s very, very sad, this situation,” Wordofa said. “This is one of the worst disasters. It is good that we give what we did to support them, but now we have to go back. We are going to continue our work with International Christian Voice. They have a tent, they have a generator, and also they have medication. The multicultural association also has the donations we collected (from the community) and we shipped it (here).

“Together we will keep working with other organizations … to increase our support.”

To learn more about the Multicultural Association of Perth Huron and to donate to its efforts to provide relief and resettle those who have been displaced in Turkey, visit maph.ca. For more information on International Christian Voice and to support that organization’s efforts, icvcanada.org.

According to official numbers from the Turkish government, more than 50,000 people in Turkey were killed in the earthquakes and their aftermath, more than 35,300 buildings had collapsed while an estimated five-million people had migrated to different cities in the country. Currently, another 2.5-million people have been left struggling to find shelter.

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