At dawn on 6th Feb, 2023 we rose up to a nightmare. Two major earthquakes with the magnitudes of 7,8 and 7,6 hit a total of 11 cities in Southern Turkey and Northern Syria. Most of us know the rest of the story, a stream of efforts and campaigns hailed to the region from all over the world.

Multinational agencies, humanitarian funds, international rescue crews and international civil society organizations hurried to the area. Tremendous amounts of effort has been given to the area. A bazillion of countries, networks and agencies contributed to the public relief in-kind, financial and conventional ways.

The United Nations initially put aside a sum of $25M dollar aid in order to support earthquake survivors. [NBC News.] The UN also appealed for $1B to the relief, hence only 10% of the appeal is funded for now. [19 Feb news piece]. The US sent an additional $100M on Feb 19 while providing in-kind aids such as tents and sanitary materials. According to Wikipedia sources, just over $1B was donated from UN countries.

The Flood of International Donations

By the dawn of the disaster, a huge volume of international donations hailed to the country. As highlighted above, strings of financial aid transfers make up an astronomical amount. While so, it is not possible to track where these financial donations are used. Likewise, there is no viable practical tool to examine the distribution of government expenditures on the financial donations. This lack of transparency raises doubts on responsibility. The mismanagement of crisis response in spite of these resource transfers to the region makes people question whether the finances are overused or misused the government authorities.  Therefore, this necessitates having an critical observatory eye on the financial donations that are designated for the region. That lays the grounds of our open letter.

Bottlenecks in crisis relief 

Corruption makes everything deadlier. However corrupt in a crisis relief is beyond an apocalypse level nightmare. The following lays down what was missing before, during and after the earthquake.

Construction amnesties: During the 21-year long AKP(Justice and Development Party) authority, a total of 11 construction amnesty has been enacted. The long-run regime of AKP announced amnesty with vigorous celebrations.

Earthquake Taxes (Special Communications Tax): Turkish citizens paid a total of £30bn “earthquake tax” from 2001 to 2023. In 2021, a presidential decree increased the special communications tax 33 percent. The increase in the tax projected on mobile electronic communication services, radio and TV broadcast via satellite and cable , wired, wireless and mobile Internet services and other electronic communication services. However, today it is not clear where the earthquake taxes are transferred. Moreover, the collapse of mobile communication services in the first days of the disaster proved right that special communication taxes are not used appropriately. Pulsed with political inaptness, a government representative claimed that the earthquake tax is not necessarily designated for disaster-related investments.

Ineffective coordination:  The fittest word to describe the coordination would be “to wait”. There was an endemic loop of wait all over the rescue efforts in the first days. Both civil volunteers and search and rescue specialists remained idle for a serious amount of time due to lack of effective coordination. Airports in Istanbul, for example, were full of AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Authority) and AKUT Search and Rescue Association  volunteers the crack of dawn on Feb 6. Consequently, AFAD volunteers stated that they were not guided their respective district desks neither in the departure nor in the orientation among the region. The inability to govern disaster response can be seen  a confession of a search and rescue worker: [Twitter link]  Confessions of international search and rescue workers: [Twitter link]

Corpse Identification and Right to Life: Applications of expert volunteers are rejected on corpse identification, adding that “police are taking care of this task.” By various sources, it is expressed that the capacity for cold corpse preservation was limited. In this scenario, the fittest way to protect public health is to start collective burying.  However, orders of collective burying will cause people to be put into mass graves, nameless. Causing many to look for their missing loved ones even after decades, it is not adequately understood while authority rejects volunteer experts from both academia and civil society. This violates citizens’ right to be buried proper respect. To be buried with proper respect is a part of the right to life and the authorities are entitled to provide the proper conditions for corpse disposal.

Tents Traded:  In the following days, a devastating claim on selling current stocks of tents at Turkish Red Crescent Kizilay dropped a bombshell at the heart of turmoil. According to Cumhuriyet Newspaper columnist Murat Ağırel,  the Red Crescent sold 46 million TL (USD 2,44 million) worth of tents to the civil charity AHBAP. The sale of the tents is confirmed the president of the Turkish Red Crescent Kizilay. Consequently, the sale created a huge criticism and fury on Kizilay among the post-earthquake instances with people calling authority representatives to resign.

Centralization-Forgotten rural areas: In the aftermath of the earthquake, sheltering efforts have been centralized due to coordination and credibility needs. While authorities started to build container cities for the recovery, people who reside at the outskirts of cities are mostly overseen. Also, various resources stated that the conditions of container cities are not sufficient for people with special needs such as patients of chronic diseases, disabled people and old citizens.

Oppressing civil society efforts for the earthquake survivors:  Civil society paved the way for reaching out to overly-scattered groups of earthquake victims around the region. Besides the huge loads of migration to other cities, there is micro-migration between counties within the cities. While so, the authorities attempted to remove civil-society-run medical centers, soup kitchens and tent parks which meet the survival needs of hundreds of victims. Incident of Sevgi Park in Hatay is an example of these evacuation pressures. 

Security of central container cities: While efforts have been centralized day in and out, doubts are raised about the internal security of containers among earthquake survivors. Information about daily life in container cities is mostly missing in the media and press. There is dire need of independent audits human rights observatories. We are calling experts and volunteers from international humanitarian and human rights observatory bodies to be deployed in those recovery areas.

Disproportionate distribution of aid stocks: Needless to say that every organization did their best in the field. However, there are quite a big portion of  instances in which people are unfortunately left to their fate. Patients of cancer, disabled people, older citizens who are in need of special care, patients of rare diseases set a few examples. Say it due to misorganization, inexperience of institutions or inadequacy, there is a common belief in society  that the distribution of aid stocks are mismanaged,  mostly not timely, unfair and inefficient.

Children: A total of 7.1 million children are affected the earthquake in both Türkiye and Syria, according to the reports. Children fell into the hands of gangs, abusers and organ mafia. Recent releases of government-backed religious cults report that a majority of unaccompanied children are placed in conservative cent houses and dormitories. Besides organ mafia and gangs, children who are placed in extreme conservative sects’ houses are the lucky ones. While the future is uncertain, displaced and orphaned children are still in dire need of humanitarian help.

Animals: There is a biased, wrong and supremacist assumption in the human condition that lives of human beings matter the most. While so, animals who survived the Kahramanmaras earthquakes are undervalued and unseen. While various international civil organizations such as PETA, IFAW, Four Paws, Humane Society were working hand in hand with the local partners such as HAYTAP in the field for animal relief, there were also regional efforts which were provided sanctuary pet houses, local authorities  and volunteer veterinarian networks. However, a comprehensive relief and recovery plan for animals who survived the earthquake is still needed.

Open Call to the International Civil Society 

Above is an attempt to summarize the super-multifaceted problems which inherited what has been happening in the region so far. While survivors strive to take hold anyhow, neglect, kleptocracy and bribing draws the scenario to the extreme. The bottlenecks we faced in the aftermath of the disaster is beyond the imagination of an average EU citizen. It is shocking that there is no action to take responsibility for past mistakes and wrongful policies on S&R and taxes, in such a disaster that cost lives of 50k and affected billions of our people.  Moreover, unpreparedness, mismanagement and miscoordination which is described above make people ascertain that the value of life shouldn’t be that much cheap. From issues on search and rescue and providing aid to burying people to rebuilding life, all hardships reminded that these were avoidable with the help of science and technology, proper disaster literacy and responsible authorities who take adequate initiative.

In the heart of this scenario, we believe that civil society plays a crucial role in observing cases of survivors, keeping track of systemic regulatory and political gangerenes and rapting current humanitarian conditions all over the region. We especially value small and medium sized networks and organizations who provide transparent, principled and traceable work. We know the value of interoperability and sharing of resources between our stakeholders, donors and partners. The more the civil action is inclusive, diverse and multicultural the more the output is strong and sustainable.

Therefore, we are calling international civil society to collaborate with us in our 3-phased social innovation project. We firstly aim to sustain our local network and delivery of in-kind donations to the survivors in the region (Phase 1). When we gain a smooth sustainability over our current humanitarian aid delivery work, we will secondly start to support local suppliers and manufacturers through our smart, sustainable and innovative solutions. (Phase 2). While a common market is on the go for agriculture and manufacturing, we will introduce a series of innovative projects that are based on fully-fledged,  smart, sustainable and eco-friendly technologies in order to rebuild life with smartest solutions in the industry (Phase 3). All through phases, we aim to increase employment, empower development and resilience in the region, for the survivors of the region.

In the light of above-worded stories, we are calling international civil society to support our work and collaborate with us. This is our shout out to global civil society to enlarge perspectives and take sentimental action. Bear with us for the coming news!