Malik Ibrahim lost a large part of his family. Today he feels that the light of hope is going out. Knotting his tears in his throat, he joined the rescue, search and rescue work of victims in Syria, after the earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey. He desperately searches for 30 relatives.
His story is picked up by the AFP agency, which describes how this man has spent two days lifting stones and all kinds of rubble in search of uncles and cousins.
At the moment, and with the help of neighbors and rescue workers, managed to remove ten corpses of the ruins in the village of Besnaya, near the border with Turkey.
The devastating spectacle of the destroyed houses contrasts with the serenity of the neighboring olive groves.
This man is encouraged by the memories he keeps of so many moments shared with his family, whom he regrets with great pain that he will not see more.
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Syria earthquake survivor regrets that his entire family has died
Malik, clad in a black jacket, removes the rubble one by one, with the help of a shovel or with his bare hands, barely protected by gloves.
He looks for his uncle, his cousin, and their respective families. All of them were buried under the roof and walls of their building, now turned into a jumble of rubble crowned with solar panels.
“An entire family has left. It is an extermination”, Malik describes. His face is livid and covered in dust.
As he picks up rubble, “this 40-year-old loses hope and breaks down in tears.”
Every time we remove a corpse I remember the good times we had together; we laughed and made jokes, she says.
“But that won’t happen again. We’re separated. They are in the afterlife and we are here. We won’t see each other again.”
Newborn who still had the cord attached to her dead mother was rescued from rubble in Syria
He managed to save himself along with his wife and children
At 04:17 in the morning of Monday, February 6, life changed completely for Syrians and Turks. The earthquake ripped them out of their beds. Many were able to take shelter. Thousands were left under the rubble of collapsed buildings and homes.
That Monday, Malik, his wife and their eight children were allowed to leave their home in the city of Idlib. Under torrential rain, he “was relieved to be alive, as were his wife and his children.”
But soon after he learned that his people, based in Besnaya, had suffered a very different fate.
“It’s a catastrophe”
Wanting to help and find his relatives, he mobilized the town hit hard by the earthquake.
About 40 kilometers from his home, he says he hasn’t slept since. “Twenty people remain under the rubble. I have no words, it is a catastrophe. We are a sinister people in every sense of the word.”
Our memories are buried with them.
Overcome adversity
Malik Ibrahim’s life has not been easy. He told the press that years ago he was forced to leave his previous home to take refuge in Idlib, “because of the civil war that since 2011 left around half a million dead.”
Twelve years later, the force of nature, turned into an earthquake, devastates the foundations of his family. His wife and children have to shelter him to try to move on.
For this Thursday, February 9, the hope of finding more survivors was fading in the areas affected by the powerful earthquake in Turkey and Syria, one of the deadliest in decades in the region, with more than 17,500 deaths.
(YO)
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Source: Eluniverso
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