Amina Demir is no stranger to helping people displaced because of natural or political disasters.
Serving as the chief operating officer for a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides aid across the globe, the Turkish-Kurdish-American woman has more than 10 years of experience helping refugees, including those in Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan.
But when the Zakat Foundation of America administrator found out about the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southeastern Turkey that stranded her own family, her work took on new meaning.
“I hate to say it, but you read about stuff like this and it seems far away,” Demir said Tuesday. “There are always these pictures and cities mentioned in the news, but this time, they’re my cities and my people.”
Demir’s family lives in Şanlıurfa, a province with a sizable Kurdish population approximately 160 miles east of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of Monday’s two earthquakes.
“I didn’t understand the weight of it until we got a call from my aunt after the second earthquake,” Demir said. “She called my dad crying, saying ‘the buildings threw me out of my bed.'”
Demir’s aunt lives in Birecik, a town about 80 miles from the earthquakes’ epicenter. Now her aunt and cousins are sleeping in their car.
While most of Demir’s relatives are accounted for, she said the sister-in-law of a cousin is trapped in rubble.
Another cousin rented a truck to help with revoery efforts and her father immediately booked a ticket to Turkey and he is now there helping family, Demir said.
Southeastern Turkey is also known as Turkish Kurdistan, and Kurds living in the region are very familiar with hardship, Demir said.
Kurds, an ethnic group native to western Asia, have historically been denied political and cultural rights in the Middle East. In the 1980s, Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey were subjected to security raids by the Turkish government that claimed the lives of many, according to Human Rights Watch.
Many members of Demir’s family, including her father,…
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