The Turkish city of Kahramanmaras did not hold its annual celebration on February 12 to mark the anniversary of the defeat of French occupiers in 1920. The commemoration has been held every year since the establishment of the modern Turkish state.
The name of the city is a combination of “Kahraman”, Turkish word meaning “hero”, and “Maras”, which was its original name up until 1973. The name was changed to mark the victory against the French.
This year, the victory celebrations were replaced with mourning over the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck last week and left the city in ruin.
A local official looks on at the operations to remove the rubble.
“Had you come here a year before, you would have seen the celebrations that used to be held,” he added, speaking with pride in the name change of the city.
Kahramanmaras lies in a mountainous region. The peaks are usually covered in snow this time of year. The city lies partially on the mountains and the field below. The field suffered much more damage from the quake than the mountain.
The city has become a wasteland of rubble. Excavators and rescue teams are working around the clock to remove the rubble and search for survivors. Thousands of residents remain missing ten days after the quake.
A football field in the heart of the city has become the temporary shelter for thousands of families. It has been spared the damage and is now filled with tents housing survivors. The stands give view to children playing in the field as the elderly take a break to bask in the sun that finally emerged after a major storm that had struck the city before and after the quake.
Ahmed, an eight-year-old Syrian boy, looks on from the stands. We asked him what he was doing here and he replied with a small smile that he was here with his family that had all survived the quake. Their house, however, was destroyed.
His father had fled the Syrian war ten years ago. He works in a factory in the city that was also heavily damaged in the disaster. Ahmed speaks in a tone that belies his young age: “Incredible. Our lives are miserable. We have lost everything all over again.”
Ahmed was born in Türkiye and has never experienced the hardship of the Syrian war or displacement from his home country that he has never even visited. But his experiences have hardened him. He is studying Turkish at school and learns Arabic at home. He said he wanted to be a doctor when he grows up.
Outside the football field, volunteers have set up food stations for the survivors who flock to a hot meal, such as Turkish meatballs and soup. “This is not like the cold and dry food they serve at displacement camps,” said one man standing in a queue of hundreds.
In the lesser damaged side of the city, some residents were inspecting a house that has not collapsed. They are wary however, of its cracked walls. It would be dangerous to go inside, but one young man does and he comes out quickly, carrying a small bag of belongings for two of his girl companions.
One group inspects a building that looks to be on the verge of collapse. They decide against risking it and leave the area.
A nearby building’s upper levels have collapsed, while the first floor appears intact. The owners managed to enter their house through the balcony and they begin to salvage whatever furniture they could.
