Woman describes trauma after 72 members of her family killed in Turkey-Syria earthquake
“I will never be able to forget what happened – I can still feel the earth shaking,” says Rana Bitar, her voice catching in her throat.
The charity boss says she lost 72 members of her extended family in the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria last year.
“I felt terror, fear and worry,” she tells Sky News, appearing close to tears as she recalls the moment the 7.8-magnitude quake hit the region, killing tens of thousands of people.
“At first, I did not know what was happening. I thought it was a war, that we were being bombed. I heard the sounds of explosions.”
At the time, Ms Bitar was alone at home with her two-and-a-half-year-old son in Gaziantep in Turkey, close to the epicentre.
As her flat shook, she picked up the toddler and rushed down seven flights of stairs and out into the “extremely cold weather” and snow. They were dressed in pyjamas and Ms Bitar was walking barefoot.
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February 2023: Drone footage shows devastation in Antakya
“It was horrible,” she says. “I was only thinking about my child, my parents, my family members.
“I recalled my whole life. I called my mother in Belgium and told her: ‘If something happens to me, I just wanted to say goodbye.'”
Ms Bitar, her husband and their son spent the next eight days living in their car and a nearby mosque.
At first, they did not know what had happened or how much death and destruction the earthquake had caused.
After learning the extent of the disaster on the news and discovering she had lost family, friends and colleagues, Ms Bitar says she had a nervous breakdown.
The 72 members of her extended family who died were related to her from her father’s side, she says. They had fled together from Latakia in Syria to Hatay in Turkey, which was the hardest-hit province.
Homes were destroyed in Antakya in Turkey’s Hatay province. Pic: AP
Whole families were wiped out, including Ms Bitar’s uncle and aunt and their children and grandchildren, she says. The youngest relative to die was five, while the oldest was 79.
“Losing so many loved ones and relatives was very sad and painful. I cried a lot,” she says. “I cannot explain the fear I have felt since the day of the earthquake.
“A few days ago I was having lunch with my husband and he started shaking his leg – I was terrified and asked him whether another earthquake was happening.”
Hidden health problems
More than a year since the earthquake struck on 6 February 2023, many survivors are struggling with the trauma of losing loved ones and suffering from hidden health problems.
The earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and some 5,900 people in Syria, while leaving millions homeless.
Hatay in Turkey was the hardest-hit province. Pic: AP
As well as physical injuries sustained in the disaster, survivors have suffered psychological problems, including insomnia and eating disorders, according to Madara Hettiarachchi, director of programmes at the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
She says there was a noticeable increase in psychological issues as the anniversary approached, telling Sky News: “The aftershocks don’t help and being cloistered in container camps is a double whammy.”
Many survivors found themselves breaking down into tears, Ms Hettiarachchi says, adding: “There was a lot of crying, a lot of feeling fragile.
“Some people thought they had moved on. One woman said, ‘I thought I was strong, I thought I was coping okay, but I feel really emotional and like it’s going backwards’.”
‘Easy for diseases to spread’
More than three million people were displaced by the earthquake, which flattened towns and caused widespread destruction in cities, leaving many who lost their homes living in temporary accommodation while struggling to find new places to live.
The DEC says some 787,000 people are still living in shelters, flimsy tents and so-called container cities in Turkey, as of December last year, where they are at greater risk of respiratory illnesses and seasonal flu, as well as scabies, lice and cholera.
A child in Antakya in Hatay, Turkey, in January. Pic: AP
Many displaced people live in containers. Pic: Reuters
“They’re small crowded spaces with very limited water and sanitation, so it’s easy for diseases to spread,” warns Ms Hettiarachchi. She says aid agencies have been focused on promoting hygiene and offering disaster relief such as hygiene kits, which include bathing soap, laundry soap, toothbrushes and sanitary pads.
Some 15 million people in Syria were already in need of humanitarian assistance before the disaster struck, with damage to pipes and water tanks increasing the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
Several relief workers say there has been an increase in miscarriages and early births after the earthquake, while some mothers had trouble breastfeeding.
A tent camp in the rebel-held Syrian town of Jandaris. Pic: Reuters
“Earthquakes and other disasters have a profound impact on the stress levels not only within communities but particularly among pregnant women,” Ozlem Kudret Cokmez, a sexual and reproductive health counsellor at Doctors Of The World Turkey, tells Sky News.
“Pregnancy and childbirth, already stress-inducing on their own, become even more challenging when coupled with factors like the degree of exposure to earthquakes, the loss of relatives, family breakdown, or relocation to new environments.”
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Rise in gender-based violence
Ms Cokmez says there have been increases in gender-based violence, including domestic abuse and sexual assault, as well as early marriages and child labour, amid unemployment, limited access to basic needs, mental health issues and trauma.
In response to such risks, charities like Space Of Peace – the organisation led by Ms Bitar – have been offering safe spaces and psychological and social support to women, as well as offering workshops for them to learn English and other skills to help them find jobs amid the worsening economic situation.
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Syrian refugees – having fled nearly 13 years of civil war to Turkey – saw the earthquake heap further misery upon their plight. “These people lost their homes many times,” Ms Bitar says. “First when they went from Syria to Turkey, then again after the earthquake. They are struggling on so many levels.”
As well as the psychological damage of the disaster, around 70% of the 118,000 people injured in the earthquake have long-term rehabilitation issues, according to the World Health Organisation. In response, charities have been providing physical therapy, wheelchairs and crutches.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to provide 200,000 homes across the area affected by the earthquake by the end of the year.
Ms Hettiarachchi believes there is some cause for optimism, saying: “Hearing stories both from aid workers as well as people who have benefited from humanitarian assistance, there is some sort of relief, there is progress.”
But she adds: “It’s worth remembering the scale of it. Any response, either by the government or by humanitarian agencies, pales by comparison. It just feels like we’re scratching the surface.”
The UK has stopped sharing some intelligence with the US on suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean following concerns over America’s strikes against the vessels.
The US has reported carrying out 14 strikes since September on boats near the Venezuelan coast.
The death toll from the US attacks in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea has risen to more than 70, as the US escalates a military build-up in the Caribbean Sea.
Downing Street did not deny reporting by CNN that the UK is withholding intelligence from the US to avoid being complicit in US military strikes it believes may breach international law.
Britain, which controls several territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has long assisted the US in identifying vessels suspected of smuggling narcotics based on intelligence gathered in its overseas territories in the region.
The USS Gravely destroyer arrives to dock for military exercises in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on 26 October (AP Photo/Robert Taylor)
That information helped the US Coast Guard locate the ships, seize the drugs and detain their crews, CNN cited sources as saying.
But since the Trump administration started carrying out strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in early September, UK officials have become concerned their intelligence may be used to acquire targets for the attacks they believe may be illegal.
The intelligence-sharing pause began more than a month ago, CNN reported, quoting sources as saying Britain shares UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk’s assessment that the strikes amount to extrajudicial killing.
The reports could provide an awkward backdrop for a meeting between Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and her US counterpart Marco Rubio, expected on Wednesday at the G7 foreign ministerial summit in Canada.
A Number 10 spokesman did not deny the move when asked about the pause in intelligence sharing.
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“We don’t comment on security or intelligence matters,” the official said in response to repeated questions.
“The US is our closest partner on defence, security and intelligence, but in line with a long-standing principle, I’m just not going to comment on intelligence matters.”
He added that “decisions on this are a matter for the US” and that “issues around whether or not anything is against international law is a matter for a competent international court, not for governments to determine”.
A Pentagon official told CNN the department “doesn’t talk about intelligence matters”.
On Monday, US secretary of war Pete Hegseth said on X that the previous day, “two lethal kinetic strikes were conducted on two vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”.
He said: “These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific.
“Both strikes were conducted in international waters and 3 male narco-terrorists were aboard each vessel. All 6 were killed. No U.S. forces were harmed.”
The United Nations human rights chief has described the US strikes on alleged drug dealers off the coast of South America as “unacceptable” and a violation of international human rights law.
Venezuela says they are illegal, amount to murder and are aggression against the sovereign South American nation.
World
Hundreds of Russian troops roll into key frontline Ukrainian city ‘Mad Max-style’, video appears to show
Hundreds of Russian troops have pushed deeper into eastern Ukrainian cities ‘Mad Max-style’, video released by the Russians appears to show.
The troops were seen rolling through the fog on motorbikes, with some on the roofs of battered cars and vans, apparently into the city of Pokrovsk, as Russia said its forces had also pressed further into Kupiansk on Tuesday.
Ukraine has acknowledged the presence of the troops on its territory, although Reuters news agency says that when the video was shot is yet to be verified.
The fight to gain hold of Pokrovsk, a strategic point on a large road and rail artery in the Donetsk region, has been raging for well over a year, in Vladimir Putin’s push to gain control of the whole of Ukraine’s industrial east.
Situation on the battlefield
The Donbas region comprises the neighbouring regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine’s military said around 300 Russian soldiers were now inside Pokrovsk and that Moscow had intensified efforts to get more troops in over the past few days – using dense fog for cover from drones.
It said Ukrainian forces were fighting Russian groups in the city.
Russian soldiers enter Pokrovsk in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on 10 November, 2025. Pic: Reuters
Moscow says taking Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, would give it a platform to push north towards the two largest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Posting on X on Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “The front: our main focus right now is on the Pokrovsk direction and the Zaporizhzhia region, where the Russians are increasing the number and scale of assaults.
“The situation there remains difficult, in part because of weather conditions that favor the attacks. But we continue to destroy the occupier, and I thank every one of our units, every warrior involved in defending Ukraine’s positions.”
Destruction in Pokrovsk on 1 November. Pic: AP
Moscow and Kyiv have given different accounts of the battle for Pokrovsk. Moscow has for days said the city is surrounded, while Kyiv has denied Moscow controls the city and said on Monday that it was still able to supply neighbouring Myrnohrad.
Moscow has been threatening Pokrovsk for more than a year, attempting to surround it and threaten supply lines, rather than use the deadly frontal assaults it used to take the city of Bakhmut in 2023.
Russian war bloggers published a video on Tuesday showing what they said were Russian forces entering Pokrovsk along a road enveloped in fog, in what some Telegram users said looked like scenes from the Mad Max action film series, many of which are set in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
The date of the footage has not been independently verified.
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Satellite image shows armoured vehicles in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, on 3 November, 2025. Pic: Reuters
Russia said it had taken 256 buildings and that Moscow’s forces were actively advancing to the northwest and east of Pokrovsk as well as around the railway station.
Russia has executed a pincer movement around the city and was close to closing it, open-source battlefield maps from both sides show, though Kyiv has counter-attacked around the town of Dobropillia.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in an interview with the New York Post that Russia was concentrating some 150,000 troops in a push to capture Pokrovsk, with mechanised groups and marine brigades forming part of this drive.
Russia said its forces had taken full control of the eastern part of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. A Russian commander, who gave his call sign as Hunter, said his troops had taken control of an oil depot on the eastern edge of Kupiansk.
In a video statement issued by Russia’s defence ministry, he said his forces had also taken control of a series of train stops along the railway to Kupiansk Vuzlovyi, a settlement around 6km (4 miles) south of the centre of Kupiansk itself.
Russia also said its troops had taken control of the settlement of Novouspenivske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine withdrew from some villages, including Novouspenivske, due to intense attacks involving more than 400 artillery strikes per day, RBC-Ukraine news agency cited a military spokesperson as saying.
Russia’s military says it now controls more than 19% of Ukraine, or some 116,000 square km (44,800 square miles), up from 18% nearly three years ago, according to Ukrainian maps tracking frontline changes.
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