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It is the first anniversary of the severe earthquake in Turkey. Aliye Gül from Eastern Switzerland is fighting to ensure that her birthplace, Antakya, is rebuilt.
For Aliye Gül, a world ended on February 6th: her world of childhood, of family and friends, of her husband. A year ago, in the middle of the night at 4:17 a.m., her phone went crazy. One message after another comes in: cries for help, anxious requests. There is said to have been a terrible earthquake in the southeast of Turkey and especially in her hometown of Antakya in the south of Turkey.
Aliye Gül spends the next few hours full of fear. She is sitting in her apartment in distant Romanshorn on Lake Constance. She can’t do anything. Her husband doesn’t answer. A few days earlier he flew from Switzerland to Turkey. The couple has had an apartment in Antakya for two years. Both of them plan to spend their well-earned retirement in their parents’ homeland as Swiss people of Turkish origin.
Hours later, the earth shakes violently again and buries Aliye’s husband. He succumbed to his internal injuries on the same day after relatives were able to rescue him and take him to the equally destroyed hospital.
Aliye only finds out about all this days later. It takes her three days alone to get by car through the congested roads from Istanbul to the earthquake zone, which is over a thousand kilometers away. She brought with her, among other things, blankets, warm clothes and power banks for cell phone batteries.
Legend:
Aliye Gül with cousin Songül, who lost her husband and son.
SRF/Nevin Sungur
Even back then, the woman from Thurgau was also thinking about all the people in need – despite all the pain she herself had to endure. In addition to her husband, to whom she was married for 37 years, around 80 relatives and close friends died in the earthquake on February 6th.
At the same time, Aliye Gül is experiencing enormous solidarity from her Swiss homeland. As the municipal clerk of Uttwil and former Thurgau councilor, she is well connected. She uses the donations to help the earthquake victims as best she can. In summer she can even organize drinking water for the tent cities and in winter shoes for those who now have to stay in containers.
As long as the local politicians in Antakya do not cooperate with the central government in Ankara, there will not be enough help for this city.
In contrast to other large cities affected by the earthquake, the rescue and clean-up work in Antakya has been progressing slowly from the start.
Shortly before the anniversary, Aliye Gül also found out why from her president. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan handed the first families the keys to new, finished apartments at the weekend, he then told party colleagues: “As long as local politics in Antakya does not work together with the central government in Ankara, there will not be enough help for this city Antakya will be alone.”
Legend:
Antakya on January 11, 2024: The damage from the earthquake a year ago can still be clearly seen.
AP Photo/Khalil Hamra
Antakya has always been a stronghold of the social democratic CHP, the strongest opposition party in the country. The president, who is also the leader of the national conservative AKP, wants to break this rule now: in the upcoming local elections at the end of March.
For Aliye Gül, this is a scandal: power politics on the backs of earthquake victims. That’s precisely why she now wants to continue to help the people in her hometown.