Earthquake orphans in Turkey, Syria face uncertain future
Thousands of requests poured into Turkey’s Social Affairs Ministry to foster children who survived last week's quakes, but the ministry maintains that its priority is to reunite kids with families or relatives, if they can.
As lives claimed by the deadly quakes in Turkey and Syria passed 40,000, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) warned that thousands, if not millions, of children in the region could be threatened by hypothermia and respiratory infections.
UNICEF said 4.6 million children lived in the 10 provinces in Turkey that were struck by the earthquakes, and more than 2.5 million children were affected in Syria, calculating that thousands of children had been killed or injured.
In Turkey, as the focus shifted from rescue to recovery in the second week since the devastating earthquakes, UNICEF warned that youngsters could be more vulnerable than adults regarding hypothermia and respiratory infections. “Families with children are sleeping in streets, malls, mosques, schools, under bridges, staying out in the open for fear of returning to their homes,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said.
“Even without verified numbers, it's tragically clear the number of children killed — the number of children orphaned is going to keep on rising," Elder warned.
