Cracks appeared on the walls of the Taşhoran Church after the earthquake.
Ishtartv.com - duvarenglish.com
Byu
Fırat Bulut , Tuesday March 07
2023
In
Malatya province, neighborhoods where Assyrians and Armenians live have been
razed to the ground after the major earthquakes that hit southeastern
Turkey last month. Both communities, who had previously been forced to
migrate three times in the last 100 years, are now migrating due to the quake
disaster.
The
Çavuşoğlu and Salköprü neighborhoods, where almost all of Malatya's Armenians
and Assyrians resided, were heavily damaged by the major earthquakes that hit
southeastern Turkey in February. In both neighborhoods with old buildings, 90
percent of the houses collapsed or are severely damaged.
Some
60 people from both communities lived in the neighborhoods before the quakes on
Feb. 6. Four people lost their lives, and most survivors left the province.
In
the first earthquake on Feb. 6, the Armenian Tabaş family of 4 was trapped
under the rubble in the Salköprü neighborhood. While the couple Ayda Tabaş and
Sami Tabaş died under the rubble, their child Aleks Tabaş, who was pulled out
of the rubble by neighbors, died in the hospital.
On
the morning of the earthquake, snowfall and freezing temperatures forced some
earthquake survivors to enter their homes. Maryam Kabataş, one of these
survivors, was caught in the second earthquake afternoon, and her dead body was
pulled out from the rubble.
Taşharon
Church was also severely damaged by the earthquake. Large cracks formed in the
historic church's walls, which was built in the second half of the 18th century
in Malatya's Çavuşoğlu Neighborhood. After being idle for a long time, the
church was restored and opened for worship in 2021.
Yusuf
Bayyiğit, an Assyrian blacksmith master who moved his family out of Malatya
after the two major earthquakes and returned later, said that the Armenian and
Assyrian population in the city does not "exceed the fingers of a
hand" (a Turkish idiom used for describing fewness).
Many houses on Boncuk Street, where massacred Agos Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink was born, also took damage.
Yusuf Bayyiğit, an Assyrian blacksmith, does not leave the city.
|
