Goodbye Antakya...

And so Antakya, the wonderful town founded by Alexander the Great, no longer exists. Wiped out: no longer those tall buildings, those that were constructed swiftly in the name of the great modern Turkey.

A Turkey that despite all its contradictions, hosted in those same buildings many who had fled their war torn homeland.

Earthquakes are not predictable, but human work is. We should have learnt this long time ago. Instead of concrete, shelters have been raised with sand, corruption, cronyism, or simply dirty politics. Like that of Assad, who brilliantly plays with international law and decides that in order to help earthquake-stricken areas, aid must first be validated and controlled by Damascus.

Because to help broken lives you first must be recognised and for Assad's , his government is the only one to be regnosible therefore with legitimate authority and the final say. This has left entire regions held by opposition forces, secluded and out of emergency responses with survivors digging with their bare hands day and night.

Photo from Emily Garthwaite for New York Times

The war is not over in Syria, and I wonder if our attention is. I have been thinking continuously to those years spent in Antakya, as well as the time spent in Dohok -Kurdish Region of Iraq- day after day, living with Syrian colleagues who then became friends.

People who fled, but who with great pain, courage and dignity stood on their feet, again. Some found a job, started new friendships, learnt new languages; some fell in love, planted new seeds of hope and had beautiful children. And some who had embrace this new beginning, had their life taken under the rubble during the night of the 6th of February.

The old city of Antakya, gave us all a sense of comfort and somehow of safety: the teas, the gentle river, markets and those same prayers that were chanted for us and for those who were only 41 km away in Syria. Everything felt much more closer.

We stood there listening to everyone else’s life, almost as if we no longer wanted to remember our own. Antakya and its hills had become a second home and family even for those of us who were not Syrians. Turkey was and is also this, with its 3.8 million refugees.

A analogical photo I have captured in 2014 from my home balcony in Antakya

That is why I am restless, still thinking of those first days when friends’ messaged their grief, frustration, and their feeling of terror, not being able to surrender to the cold and sleep. The pain tormented their soul as they were not, and many will never be, able to mourn the loss of their beloved who have been spared by the war but not by this cataclysm.

I cannot imagine what it means not being able to help, reach, say goodbye to your own brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and being left with the only chance of seeing them returning in a coffin, or buried in pits with a number instead of a name. I guess the prayers of those says it all...

“We belong to God, and we will be in his house one day, gives us strength as we are not strong enough, heal our wounds and our disgrace"

A man mourns at a mass grave area in Hatay, on Feb. 10.Source: AFP/Getty Images

#antakya #earthquakesyriaturkey

Read as well the Guardian ‘Where are they?’ Anger in north-west Syria at slow earthquake response

Have a look at Photo Essay on the New York Times showing Antakya and other major affected areas Death Toll in Turkey and Syria From Earthquake Passes 20,000