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DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Turkish Red Crescent criticised for selling tents after quake
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Turkish Red Crescent criticised for selling tents after quake
by AFP Staff Writers
Ankara (AFP) Feb 26, 2023

The Turkish opposition and media on Sunday criticised the Red Crescent humanitarian group for selling rather than donating tents for those made homeless by the massive deadly quake this month.

According to the Cumhuriyet daily, the Turkish Red Crescent has sold 2,050 tents to the local Ahbap charity for 46 million Turkish pounds ($2.4 million).

The quake, which struck on February 6, killed more than 44,000 people in Turkey and thousands more perished in neighbouring Syria.

"This is a scandal," said Murat Agirel, the Cumhuriyet journalist who broke the story of the sale of aid tents.

"Turkey's largest charity, the Red Crescent, sold tents instead of distributing them for free to those in need when people were begging for them three days after the earthquake," he said.

Turkish Red Crescent head Kerem Kinik confirmed on Twitter that Kizilay Cadir, a subsidiary of his organisation in charge of producing the tents, had provided them to Ahbap "at cost price".

"The Red Crescent's cooperation with Ahbap is moral, reasonable and ethical," Kinik said.

But several opposition figures called for the resignation of the Red Crescent chairman.

"Shame on you," Meral Aksener, chairwoman of the nationalist Iyi Party, said on Twitter.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused those who criticise the Red Crescent of being "dishonest and vile".

In response, the leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accused Erdogan in a tweet of "insulting the earthquake victims".

The Turkish government was itself accused of failing to distribute sufficient tents, humanitarian aid and relief teams in several locations in the days following the earthquake.

Wave of support for Turkish father who lost daughter in quake
Ankara (AFP) Feb 26, 2023 - A photo of a father holding his daughter's hand killed in Turkey's February 6 earthquake has provoked an outpouring of sympathy and support from around the world, he told AFP.

Around three weeks after the disaster that killed more then 44,000 people in Turkey and thousands more in neighbouring Syria, AFP photographer Adem Altan tracked down Mesut Hancer in the capital Ankara.

He had moved there from Kahramanmaras, near the epicentre of the quake.

As well as his daughter, lost under the ruins of an eight-storey block of flats, "I lost my mother, my brothers, my nephews in the quake," said Hancer.

"But nothing compares to burying a child. The pain is indescribable."

The image of Hancer wearing an orange jacket against the cold and rain while holding his daughter's hand emerging from the rubble, was published on many newspaper front pages and seen millions of times online.

It became a symbol of a disaster that devastated tens of thousands of lives, drawing special attention to his family.

Now, a businessman has offered the former baker an administrative job at a TV channel and given the family an apartment in Ankara.

Meanwhile a painting of Hancer's daughter Irmak as an angel alongside her father, donated by an artist, hangs in their living room.

"I couldn't let go of her hand. My daughter was sleeping like an angel in her bed," he recalled.

- Waiting for help -

Hancer was working in his bakery when the quake hit at 4:17 am (0117 GMT).

Calling home, he found his wife and three adult children were safe at home in their one-storey house, although it was damaged as the earth shook.

But no-one could reach Irmak, the youngest, who had stayed the night at her grandmother's house.

She had planned to spend time with cousins visiting from Istanbul and Hatay.

Rushing to his mother's building, Hancer found the eight-storey block collapsed into a mound of rubble.

In the middle, amid the debris of everyday life, was his daughter.

Waiting more than a day before any rescue team arrived, Hancer and other local people tried to find their loved ones under the ruins themselves, even trying -- and failing -- to shift concrete blocks by hand.

Unable to recover Irmak's body, he remained sat by her side.

"I held her hand, I stroked her hair, I kissed her cheeks," he recalls.

Later, he saw Adem Altan taking photos of the scene.

"Take pictures of my child," he said in a quiet, broken voice.

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