Nazlı Sinem Koytak, a psychologist from Imece Inisiyatifi, a local NGO supported by MSF.
“Usually, after a life-threatening event has passed, people are comforted, and we expect their fear to lessen as time goes by.
Unfortunately, though, since aftershocks continue to happen, we are seeing that people’s fears are very much alive and not decreasing. People are physically and mentally tired.
The majority of people we talked to shared that they are too scared to enter their homes. They do not feel safe inside. Even if they must go inside during the day, they try to leave as fast as they can and spend the night in tents. This is true even for people who have their houses only slightly damaged.
In one of the villages, the participants said their houses ‘had now turned into monsters’. People used to take refuge in their homes, but now homes have turned into a place of fear, a place that kills them.
It will take a long time to repair this.
Therefore, in our work, we prioritise a number of activities that restore people’s trust in the family, especially between parents, children and adolescents.”