The organisation of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Europe made an urgent call for providing shelter to people in Turkey and Syria affected from the twin earthquakes on Monday.
“There is a massive lack of winter-proof shelter, and there are not enough production facilities or tarp in Turkey,” said the HDP Europe, adding that transferring tents from abroad has become a priority for emergency-relief efforts.
The organisation listed winterised tents, mats and sleeping bags as the most urgent needs and asked international donors to send deliveries to the HDP’s Central Crisis Coordination to make sure that their support really reaches people who are in need.
Many in Turkey who are trying to send humanitarian aid to earthquake victims are looking for tents to buy, but the stocks have already been sent to the disaster area and the ongoing production is not sufficient to meet the needs of the 13.5 million people affected from the earthquakes, many of which have been left homeless.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also protested the lack of sufficient tents in the earthquake hit areas on Saturday, which are also struggling with extraordinary sub-zero temperatures.
“From here I am making a call to all tent producing companies in Turkey, if you have tents in hand, tents in your stocks, please send them to our metropolitan city mayors, give us all the tents you have. We are going to buy them and send them to earthquake areas,” the politician said while visiting the Malatya province on Saturday.
Kılıçdaroğlu also criticised the government agency’s unpreparedness.
“How can they act in such an unprepared way. One cannot comprehend, how can they condemn people to cold weather, they have already been suffering the pain of the earthquake, it is really heart breaking that they are also facing such a pain, such an enormous problem,” he said.
