Earthquake Solidarity: The Federation's ongoing campaigning, lobbying, and fundraising work

Members of the Kurdish community across Australia are devastated and grieving from the tragic aftermath of the earthquakes, and this is particularly the case with members and families from Bakur (Northern Kurdistan/South Eastern Turkey) and Rojava (Western Kurdistan/ Northern Syria).

Across this predominantly Kurdish border region, the fallout from the earthquakes have been nothing less than catastrophic, with the current death toll rising from 44,000. We are acutely aware that the political situation that innocent Kurdish communities in these regions have been dominated by has directly contributed to the thousands of preventable deaths across both Syria and Turkey.

There are many reasons why the earthquake was so devastating, including faulty construction and storms that brought heavy rain and snow prior to the disaster. Yet reports from both Syria and Turkey suggest that another factor has contributed to the massive loss of life: anti-Kurdish discrimination.

Many in Turkey believe that the Turkish government’s lack of preparedness is to blame for the scope of the tragedy. A 6.8 magnitude earthquake that killed dozens in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority Elazig province in January 2020 could have served as a warning. Survivors of this quake were left questioning why the more than $10 billion in taxes collected after a deadly 1999 earthquake had not been spent on earthquake-proofing buildings in vulnerable regions. The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) also stated at the time that the Turkish Interior Ministry had blocked delivery of aid to Elazig.

Today, millions of survivors feel abandoned. “Rescue teams are insufficient. Residents try to rescue their relatives on their own, but the Turkish police doesn’t allow it,” Ismet Konak, a local journalist in southern Turkey, told the Kurdish Peace Institute.

“We don’t see any emergency workers, and we are afraid that people under the rubble have frozen to death. Turkish police are also gathering around the rubble and preventing rescuers from working,” Konak said. While tens of thousands remained trapped under collapsed buildings, the Turkish government focused on attacking critics.

https://www.kurdishpeace.org/research/civil-society/discrimination-made-the-turkey-syria-earthquake-more-deadly/

There is no doubt that corruption in construction — a sector Erdogan and his allies monopolise — allowing many contractors to fall short of the building code in these earthquake prone areas made the earthquakes far deadlier. It is also now emerging that the Turkish regime ignored warnings by seismologists, some as recent as the week before, that a large earthquake appeared inevitable.

Across Bakur, people are seeking temporary shelter and food amid freezing winter weather, and waiting in anguish by piles of rubble where family and friends may still lie buried.

There is no way to overstate the devastation of these events that are demonstrably made worse by ongoing racism, occupation, war and displacement. We know that the long term outlook is just as bleak for affected regions if we do not work now to help change their situation. This is why the Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society - Australia members are working tirelessly to campaign, lobby and fundraise around these critical issues for our communities.

To provide a brief and non exhaustive summary, we have:

1. Organised fundraising efforts across different cities for Heyva Sor (the Kurdish Rd Crescent), the most reliable and authoritative presence on the ground, providing shelter, healthcare, essential supplies, and cooked meals.

2. Our biggest fundraising event was held at the Kurdish Democratic Community centre in Sydney, where community members and prominent guests from the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party raised over $64,000 through the course of the night alone.

3. We have held meetings with senior officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as a community partner, to impress upon the government the gravity and complexity of the situation in the worst affected areas. We have highlighted at these meetings the need to closely monitor any and all support offered by Australia, to ensure that support urgently reaches the people and communities who need them, without bureaucratic or political obstacles by the Turkish or Syrian regimes.

4. Federation members in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth have visited the homes of breaved families and individuals every evening who have had family members perish in the earthquakes, or whose family members are still missing and unaccounted for. At these visits, we provide moral support and solidarity and shared grieving as per our cultural customs. Crucially, we identify their needs and concerns, which The Federation then seeks to address in collaboration with community members.

5. We have written to DFAT, key political figures and supporters, and major news outlets to highlight the crucial difficulties that survivors and communities are facing on the ground, and how the Australian Government can help. You can read this release here.

6. Encouraged community members to engage with their local representatives to highlight our concerns regarding barriers to affected communities receiving the urgent assistance and relief that they need.

The Federation is committed to working constructively together with Government, political representatives, community, NGOs and the media to bring to light the many layers of the immediate and long term effects of the devastating earthquakes on people and their critical infrastructure. We are especially determined to continue efforts to bring help and critical care to victims on the ground, in every way that we can.