Residents of a village in Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep say they received no state support for six days after the double earthquake that hit the region on 6 February, and the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) provided them vital supplies in the meantime.
“People we call ‘terrorists’ came to our assistance before the state,” one villager told Mezopotamya news.
The villager said the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) had brought some five tents to their village on the sixth day after the disaster.
Residents of Yalvaç Obası also said that AFAD had only distributed a few tents, while the villagers had rescued their relatives from under the rubbles by their own means.
Co-chair of the HDP’s southeastern Şırnak branch organisation Zilan Yaman, who has been engaged in disaster relief efforts in Gaziantep, told Mezopotamya that the state institutions failed in carrying out their responsibilities.
“What we are seeing is putting us in despair. Troops, village guards and security forces have been sent to this region instead of AFAD, search-and-rescue and medical teams,” Yaman said.
