Turkish government launches accommodation project for quake survivors

PanARMENIAN.Net - Government agencies have taken over a project, initially launched by a journalist on Twitter, to temporarily accommodate families left homeless by the deadly earthquake in Van in the homes of volunteer citizens.

“[The temblor] facilitated the liberation of fraternal sentiments that were suppressed in this country for 200 years due to [bad] policies. Fraternity is what sprang out of the faultline,” journalist Ahmet Tezcan said.

Some 17,000 people applied to host quake victims inside their own homes on the first day that an online campaign known as “My home is your home, Van” was set up for that purpose.

Starting November 5, the Istanbul Governor’s Office will place 60 families in the homes of volunteers as part of the project.

Family and Social Policy Minister Fatma Şahin said she was going to assume the task of orchestrating the project and that she had put Ömer Özcan, who served as a deputy governor in Van for seven years, in charge of the project’s coordination, Tezcan said.

The Education Ministry will also play its part in the initiative by helping to place the families’ children in schools as guest students.

Meanwhile, frantic rescue efforts to save the lives of victims trapped underneath the rubble have finally given way to the sorting and distribution of aid materials to the survivors, nine days after the temblor first struck, Hurriyet Daily News reported.