Wroud Ghuzlan and Mouaz Mabda are both 23 and have fled the war in Syria. They are now studying at the ROC Ter Aa in Helmond and have organized an action there for the victims of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. They believe that attention should continue to be paid to the earthquake, because people are no longer dying under the rubble, but in the emergency shelter due to the cold.
Food stalls will be set up in the school hall on Thursday afternoons and there will be a table tennis tournament. “You don’t have to do something big,” says Wroud Ghuzlan. “People there are so happy that you are thinking of them. You can’t build everything all at once.”
“We would like to bring them here, even if only temporarily”
Mouaz has been on the run since he was eleven. “Young people in Syria have never experienced the spring of their lives. They went straight to autumn and winter,” he says. “You run with your family between battles, from one village to another city.”
Mouaz eventually ended up in the Netherlands. His grandmother and aunt fled to Gaziantep in Turkey, a few kilometers from the epicenter.
“My mother entered my room very early on the Monday of the earthquake. She just woke up and checked her phone. Something she never does. Then she saw the news about the earthquake.”
It took them hours to find his grandmother and aunt. They had fled their apartment and were in a mosque. Then in a tent and now illegally in Ankara. Mouaz’s grandmother cannot sleep well. She wakes up every night. “She thinks everything is shaking,” says Mouaz, “while nothing is wrong. I’m afraid we’ll never get rid of that trauma. We would like to bring them here, even if only temporarily.”
“I cried for five days, whole families died”
Wroud also fled the war and found a place in the Netherlands with her family six years ago. Wroud has a lot behind him. She lost her father in the war because there were no more medicines for his illnesses. And she herself was shot right through the neck by a sniper. “I remember falling all of a sudden, seeing all the blood and trying to talk. But no sound came out.”
Wroud also looked on Instagram in horror. An earthquake in Turkey. How bad. She immediately shared it. “But there was nothing about Syria at all. A friend of mine there told me that there had also been an earthquake.” Some of Wroud’s fellow students died. “I cried for five days, whole families died.”
Wroud actually wanted to pack her suitcase and get there as soon as possible. “But that is dangerous. It is difficult for the aid supplies to reach Syria because there is a war there.” Wroud felt powerless. A war and an earthquake. It was too big for her.
“How do we keep people alive there after the earthquake?”
Wroud and Mouaz are now in action mode. The attention for the victims of the earthquake must continue. Moaz thinks that the attention is slackening and he is disappointed. “The first emergency aid has been done, now we have to look at the second phase. How do we keep people alive there after the earthquake? Because people are now dying from a fire in their tent or from the cold. It’s heartbreaking.”