Earthquake in Turkey is only the latest tragedy for refugees

“We have Ukrainian guests who fled the war and they are also inside. We had no contact,” said Sisman, whose Turkish father-in-law was also trapped under the rubble of the 10-year-old apartment building.

As rescuers dig through piles of rubble, Sisman seems to have lost hope.

Millions of refugees, like Sisman’s relatives, have found refuge in Turkey, fleeing wars and local conflicts from countries as close as Syria to as far away as Afghanistan.

There are at least 3.6 million Syrians who have fled war in their homeland since 2011, arriving in droplets or en masse, sometimes crossing the border to seek shelter from punitive bombing, chemical weapons attacks and starvation. Over 300,000 others have come to escape their own conflicts and hardships, according to the United Nations.

For them, the earthquake was just the latest tragedy – one that many are still too shocked to understand.

“This is the biggest disaster we’ve seen and we’ve seen a lot,” said Yehia Sayed Ali, 25, a university student whose family moved to Antakya six years ago to escape the war in Syria at its height.

His mother, two cousins ​​and another relative perished in the earthquake. On Saturday, he sat in front of his demolished two-story building and waited for rescuers to help him dig up their bodies.

“Not a single Syrian family lost a loved one in this earthquake,” said Ahmad Abu Shaar, who ran a shelter for Syrian refugees in Antakya that is now in ruins.

Abu Shaar said people were looking for loved ones and many have refused to leave Antakya even though the quake left the city with no habitable buildings, electricity, water or heating. Many sleep on the streets or in the shadows of destroyed buildings.

“People are still in shock. No one could have imagined that,” Abu Shaar said.

Certainly not Sisman, who flew to Turkey with his wife from Qatar to help locate his in-laws and their Ukrainian relatives.

“Right now my mother-in-law and father-in-law are inside. They lie under rubble… There were no rescue teams. I went up alone, checked and walked around. I saw bodies and we pulled them out from under the rubble. Some without heads,” he said.

Construction workers searching the rubble told Sisman that while the building’s ceiling was solid, the garage and foundations weren’t as strong.

“When these collapsed, the building was leveled,” said a shaken Sisman. He seemed to have accepted that his relatives would not make it out alive.

Overwhelmed by the trauma, Abdulqader Barakat stood in despair and asked for international help to rescue his children trapped under concrete in Antakya.

“There are four. We took two out and two are still (inside) for hours. We hear their voices and they react. We need (rescue) squads,” he said.

At the Syrian shelter, Mohammed Aloolo sat in a circle surrounded by his children, who escaped from the swaying building that eventually collapsed like an accordion.

He came to Antakya in May from a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border. He had survived artillery shelling and fighting in his hometown in central Syria’s Hama province, but he called his survival in the earthquake a miracle.

Other relatives were not so lucky. Two nieces and their families remain under the rubble, he said, fighting back tears.

“I don’t wish that on anyone. I can’t say anything that would describe that,” Aloolo said.

Scenes of desperation and sadness can be found throughout the region, which just days before was a peaceful sanctuary for people fleeing war and conflict.

At a cemetery in the city of Elbistan, some 320 kilometers north of Antakya, a Syrian family wept and prayed as they buried one of their own. Naziha Al-Ahmad, a mother of four, was pulled dead from the rubble of her new home. Two of her daughters were seriously injured, including one who lost her toes.

“My wife was good, very good. Affectionate, kind, a good wife, God bless her soul,” said Ahmad Al-Ahmad. “Neighbors died and we died with them.”

Graves fill up quickly.

At the Turkish-Syrian border, people were loading body bags onto a truck waiting to take the remains to Syria for burial in their home country. Among them was the body of Khaled Qazqouz’s 5-year-old niece, Tasneem Qazqouz.

Tasneem and her father both died when the quake struck the border town of Kirikhan.

“We pulled them out from under the destruction, from under the rocks. The whole building collapsed,” Qazqouz said. “We worked three days to get her out.”

Qazqouz signed his niece’s name on the body bag before sending her to the truck to Syria.

He prayed as he released her.

“Say hello to your father and give him my wishes. Say hello to your grandfather and uncle and everyone else,” he shouted. “We now have nothing between the destruction and the rubble. Life has become so difficult.”

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Titova reported from Elbistan, Turkey and Abuelgasim from Cilvegozu, Turkey. Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Antakya contributed to this report.