Ankara: Naval Agol was woken up by a violent earthquake in the early hours of Monday. His mother and father went into his room, and they immediately left their apartment.
But while evacuating the building via the stairs, a heavy water tank fell on top of Nevel and his father.
His father’s arm was broken, and Naval suffered a severe head injury.
His mother was trapped under the debris of the building, which had completely collapsed. He was rescued after hours of struggle.
Naval somehow managed to escape from the building, and some neighbors took him to a nearby hospital. But they handed her over to an ambulance driver they met along the way, believing it to be the best option, and gave her name and details.
That’s the last the Akgol family heard from their only daughter.
Naval Agol is among some 225 children reported missing since last week’s earthquake in Turkey.
“People started making fun of our pain. They are sending us fake information about the whereabouts of Naval. It drains our energy and hopes,” Naval’s cousin Emre told Arab News.
Some 225 children have been reported missing since last week’s earthquake in Turkey, of whom 42 have since been found and 69 have been identified as having died in hospital.
With many families stranded and separated for several days, some parents lost contact with the children if they survived before them.
Some children are unable to communicate with authorities due to trauma, while some of them are children with no identifying information on their clothing or means of communication.
Social media accounts in Turkey have been filled with emotional posts showing photos of the missing children, where they were rescued and where they were last seen.
After a day-long search effort with authorities and through social media channels, a lawyer in Hatay found her newborn son, Suleiman, who was rescued by another citizen who found the child in the rubble of a building .
Under normal circumstances, a social worker is responsible for caring for each child hospitalized or found in the rubble and placing a tag on their bed, which includes the name, family details and information about the whereabouts of the rescue operation Is.
But, as many government officials were also trapped during the earthquake, there is chaos and disarray in the various bureaucracies of the region.
Another aspect of the story is the situation of some Syrian refugee children, mostly concentrated in Hatay.
Families have been searching hospitals and mortuaries around the quake zone for any sign of the missing children, and efforts to track down minors have been moved to dozens of cities outside the region reportedly driven to safety by many lone children from the quake zone. being visited, including Istanbul, Ankara, Kayseri, Samsun and Zonguldak.
On Friday Turkey’s science and research agency Tubitk developed a new program called Bilen Goes to match photos of missing children with photos of children found in various hospitals across the country.
The system contains information about the locations where the children were rescued, their photographs and family details, and is only accessible by government officials and the police.
Those who approach the authorities in search of missing children will have to prove their relationship with the child in question.
After the deadly 1999 earthquake, which struck the northwestern region of Turkey and killed nearly 18,000 people, many children went missing and have still not been found.
Some of them were allegedly taken by fake ambulances from the disaster zone, with stories about involvement in international adoption networks, child trafficking and even the illegal organ trade.
There is currently no information about the dead children being buried without identification or DNA samples being taken. Data about the distribution of unidentified and unaccompanied children in the country’s hospitals is also not publicly disclosed.
Since last Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake, 36,217 people have died, of which about 31,643 are in Turkey.
Hatice Kapusuz of Turkey’s Disaster Child Civil Coordination Team said that setting up a centralized system, such as reuniting families with more than 5,000 lost children after Hurricane Katrina in the US in 2005, was of utmost importance to Turkey.
“All data taken from different hospitals in different cities should be compiled into a common database and there should be social workers and nurses responsible for managing communication channels between families and children,” he told Arab News.
“But now, families have to travel to all cities and all hospitals, including morgues and intensive care units, to find their young children, because they can’t access any centralized database,” Kapusuz.
Given the urgency of the matter, a short-term national consultation post was opened by UNICEF for a situational analysis on missing children in Turkey.
Meanwhile, several international search and rescue teams, including those from Europe and Israel, have begun to leave Turkiye, although some 4,500 search and rescue operations, with the participation of some 34,700 people, continue in the disaster area.
A seventh Saudi Arabian relief plane arrived over the weekend to aid victims in the region, carrying more than $9.6 million worth of medical aid and equipment.
The Kingdom also sent several rescue teams in the last week.
Hatay Airport – a major channel for aid delivery and evacuation – has reopened after damage was repaired.
Following a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged to provide additional aid to Turks, specifically heaters, blankets and tents.
A donors’ conference will also be held in Brussels in March to raise international funds.