Turkey-Syria earthquake: AMA supports 10-year-old girl who lost her entire family
Bayan, a ten-year-old girl from northwest Syria, was celebrating her older twin-siblings’ birthday party with the rest of her family when the walls of their apartment started to shake uncontrollably.
Nour and Ahmed, the 11-year-old twins, had gathered around a cake, with the rest of the family singing for them.
The room was filled with love and smiles, an occasion Bayan says she will remember forever.
When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck on 6 February, the family had just fallen asleep.
The loud crashes of things falling to the ground had woken them up, startled and afraid of what was happening.
The entire family got up, quickly trying to process what was happening and find somewhere safe to stand. But the ground gave way beneath them and the walls, which just a few hours ago were a safe-haven, also started to crumble.
Bayan doesn’t remember much of what happened after that.
Trapped for 15 hours
Search and rescue teams pulled Bayan out from under the rubble after 15-hours of her being trapped, with fragments of their ceiling covering her head.
So far, over 40,000 lives have been lost in the devastating quake, across Turkey and Syria, with the number expected to grow as more bodies are pulled out from under the heaps of rubble.
A drone image shows the destruction caused by the earthquake in a residential area in Syria (AMA/Abbas Fakih)
Jihan Kaisi, AMA’s co-ordinator on the ground in Syria, said that this is just one of many stories they have discovered since going to provide aid to the victims.
“This is really one of the most heart-breaking stories I have heard,” she said.
“When Bayan was pulled out from under the rubble, she heard her uncle’s voice calling her, and she found out that her entire family was dead,” she added.
Bayan, like many other children who have become orphaned in the earthquake, found the news difficult to process.
“She was shocked and couldn’t fathom how one moment she was around her entire family and then the next she had no one with her,” Kaisi explains.
AMA supports orphans on the ground
Estimates state that around 23 million people have been affected by the earthquake.
There is a dire need for food, tents, and blankets as temperatures drop significantly and families have nowhere to stay warm.
Aid organisations have also warned about the spread of cholera and diarrhea as there is a lack of clean water available and nowhere to use the toilet.
AMA has been on the ground providing dignity kits, which contain hygiene and sanitary items for people in need, as well as building insulated tents.
A young girl sits in an insulated tent built by AMA in response to the earthquake (AMA/Omar Hamesh)
One of the main concerns in the aftermath of the quake remains the psychological scars it has left on people.
“I asked Bayan what else she misses apart from her family, and she told me it was a teddy bear which I used to hug and hold close whenever I was in pain,” Kaisi says.
“We went to a toy store and purchased a new teddy for her,” she added.
Bayan now says she wants to work towards her goals of becoming a doctor in the future, something her mother wanted for her.
AMA has continued to support Bayan, and the thousands of other orphans on the ground, however there is an urgent need for further donations in order to be able to support all of those affected.
Donations can be made online or by calling our offices.
