A man is desperately fighting to get his family out of Turkey and to his home in Greater Manchester. The family, including his baby son, are being forced to ‘sleep on the street’ in disaster-struck Gaziantep as their house is crumbling following the major earthquakes and tremors.
“It’s my dad, mum, my wife, my two-month old son. We are Syrian refugees and we don’t have passports. My family is too scared to go back into their house, all the walls are cracked and crumbling,” Khaled Osman, who lives in Salford, told the Manchester Evening News.
“The aftershocks are still happening, shaking everything. They’re scared the house is going to come down. I’m so worried about them, everything is upside down over there.”
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“The cold weather and they’re having to sleep outside in the street,” continued Khaled. “They had been going to the mosque for shelter but they’ve spent 10 days outside in a park where all the homeless are gathering because all the buildings have crumbled.”
Khaled’s mother, brother, sister-in-law and their four children lived in the house next door to his own wife and children. They too have been sleeping on the street as they are scared to go back home, Khaled shares.
On Monday, another earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, two weeks after a disaster that killed around 45,000 people. UN officials have warned the number of people killed could exceed 50,000.
The British Government sent an international search and rescue team to Turkey in the early response to the disaster, and has increased support for the White Helmets volunteer organisation in war-torn Syria. Millions in aid have been donated from around the world to the aid rescue efforts.
A public appeal to help victims of the earthquake by the Disasters Emergency Committee, a non-government organisation bringing together 15 UK aid charities, raised more than £60 million in its first three days.
Khaled came to the UK from Syria, seeking asylum in 2013. He now has indefinite leave to remain and is applying for British citizenship. The 34-year-old says he struggles to work as movement in his hand is reduced by more than 50 per cent as he was the victim of a knife attack in Syria, but manages to earn a living with shifts in a shop in Salford.
Now, the terrified dad of little Kerem Osman is frantically trying to find a way to get his family to safety in the UK: “I have tried to contact the UN to ask what to do but no one has responded. I am trying to work with my MP in Salford who says they are going to contact the embassy in Turkey.”
Aid workers on the ground in Turkey and Syria have described the “grim” devastation caused by the most recent earthquake, the Press Association news agency has reported. Salah Aboulgasem, who is working for the charity Islamic Relief in Gaziantep, where Khaled’s family are, arrived 14 hours after the earthquake struck 21 miles east of the city.
He said: “I’ve been working in the humanitarian space for more than 15 years. I’ve been to many disaster zones and I’ve been to many warzones, and I have to say that the size and the scale of this is unprecedented.”
Mr Aboulgasem spoke of his shock at visiting Nurdagi, a nearby town of 50,000 people, where he said 70 per cent of buildings had been flattened.
“Looking around, there were search and rescue operations going on everywhere,” he said. “Everywhere you looked there was a search and rescue going on. The buildings had completely collapsed. It was shocking to see it.”
He added that survivors are so terrified of buildings collapsing in aftershocks that they are remaining out on the streets and living in tents.
Mr Aboulgasem said: “People are cold, very, very cold. People who had buildings or were living in shelters that have not been destroyed, psychologically, emotionally and understandably they are not willing to return to those.
“We did a distribution yesterday of blankets and I have never seen blankets be taken as quickly as they were yesterday. It was unbelievable. It just shows how cold people are now.”
Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Salford MP, has been contacted for comment. Her office said it could not comment on individual cases but told the M.E.N.: "We are raising issues such as this, and concerns, with the government about the safety of relatives of constituents that are in Turkey following the devastating earthquake."
A spokesperson for the Home Office also said they do not comment on individual cases, but told the M.E.N.: “We responded immediately to provide the humanitarian support that the Turkish government asked for following these devastating earthquakes, including a team of 77 search and rescue experts with specialist equipment.
“We are working with the United Nations and other partner organisations to coordinate the emergency response in Syria. Those who are displaced as a result of these disasters and wish to join family in the UK can apply via our standard visa routes.”
The government added:
- Family members of a British national who are living in Turkey or Syria or who are Turkish or Syrian nationals seeking to come to the UK need to check if they need a visa at: https://www.gov.uk/apply-to-come-to-the-uk.
- Our standard visa routes remain available and applications can be submitted at the nearest Visa Application Centre.
- Those wishing to come to the UK for a short time to stay with family can apply for a visit visa which allows them to stay in the UK for up to six months. Further details are available at: https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor.
- Immediate family members of British citizens, and those settled in the UK, who wish to come and live in the UK can apply under one of the existing family visa routes. Further details are available at: https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa.
- Fee waivers are available to those who do not have a place to live and cannot afford one, have a place to live but cannot afford essential living costs like food or heating, or have a very low income and paying the fee would harm their child’s wellbeing.
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