WASHINGTON, DC (6 Feb 2023)—The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the nation’s largest umbrella group of Muslim institutions, has called on Muslim relief organizations and American Muslims to rush lifesaving humanitarian aid to tens of thousands utterly devastated by two mammoth predawn earthquakes that rocked southeast Turkiye-northern Syria, already in the thralls of regional snow, frozen rain, and cold temperatures now hampering urgent rescue efforts.
USCMO leaders have also issued an emergency request to all U.S. mosques and Islamic Centers to dedicate Friday congregational prayer sermons, appeals, and collections to the now homeless, freezing, injured victims of these back-to-back historically destructive 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude temblors, the worst since 1999 in the fault-line-straddling region.
USCMO thanks our government for quickly offering the United States help in the relief efforts.
“American Muslims and Islamic institutions must come together and mount a major humanitarian response through our Muslim humanitarian and international relief organizations that already have well-developed health and human service infrastructures in exactly the region that the earthquakes struck,” said Oussama Jammal, the Council’s executive director.
The first quake center ripped from about 20 miles northwest of Gaziantep, Turkiye, a regional capital and host to nearly half-a-million Syrian refugees at 4:17 a.m. local time, while most people slept. That’s one reason the two quakes instantly killed at least 2,300 people – a number sure to rise.
But that temblor, and the second one about 9 hours later, also ripped through a huge geographical swath of 10 regional cities, afflicting at least 10 million and collapsing nearly 2,900 buildings in their two calamitous waves. The crumpled buildings included two hospitals, one in Hatay and the other in Iskenderun. More than 120 subsequent tremors have rolled and rumbled beneath the terrified population’s feet since.
“Our eyewitness reports are telling us that rescue workers can’t even reach some of these places, the damage is so catastrophic and the freezing, snowing weather is so bad,” said Jammal. “Thousands upon thousands have lost everything. They urgently need shelters, heating sources, winter clothing, food, hygiene kits, medicines, and medical equipment.”
This will only add to the number of orphans and widows, many of them already refugees of the Syrian civil war.
The nearly 3000 buildings that have come down so far from the two quakes — the second quake centered about 2.5 miles south and east of Ekinozu, Kahranmanmaras — are pre-year-2000 constructions of poor quality, built before Turkiye implemented earthquake-resistant building codes. Moreover, most of the crumbled buildings are gigantic multi-unit structures, reflecting the massive migration into newly urbanized areas since the 1950s.
Current death counts have climbed to 1,541 in Turkiye and 810 in Syria.
“Our American Muslim humanitarian charities and people must mobilize all the resources — money, temporary shelters, winter blankets and clothing, food, medicines, equipment —as much as we can for our devastated brothers and sisters in Turkiye and Syria, who have already been through so much disaster and hardship,” said Jammal.
“And our mosques and Islamic centers should together dedicate this Friday — its sermons, prayers, and charity collections — to asking God to save and relieve our brothers and sisters struck by these quakes and to filling our Muslim humanitarian relief organizations with resources to save, feed, clothe, and heal our severely tested brothers and sisters.”
Our prayers are for the victims, their families, and all those affected by this earthquake. May the Almighty Allah help them and bestow his mercy on all.
###
