King Charles has heard emotional pleas for urgent help from families who have lost relatives in the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. The King spoke to a Syrian man who had lost his mother, father, and another family in this “catastrophe”. “For seven days my family was under the rubble and no rescue teams reached them,” said Salah Al-Asmar. The King was hearing first-hand stories from the Syrian community in an event at Trafalgar Square in London. A temporary “Syria House” has been opened in the square, providing a focus for the earthquake relief efforts of the Syrian community in the UK, many already displaced by the country’s civil war.
Mr. Al-Asmar, who works with the White Helmets emergency relief group, was originally from Syria, but his family had been living across the border in Turkey when they were lost in the earthquake. “I couldn’t sleep for seven days, before I heard, unfortunately, all of them had died,” said Mr. Al-Asmar, who had been comforted by the King. “We need more help,” he told the King, calling for a more rapid response from the international community, thousands of lives had been lost, and “thousands of houses have been totally destroyed”.
The King asked if enough assistance was arriving, but he was told of delays – and he called over a Foreign Office aide to speak to the Syrian family. Mr. Al-Asmar said the impact of the earthquake was even worse than Syria’s war. “We faced airstrikes, we faced forced displacement, we faced clashes, but we didn’t face such a catastrophe,” he said. “There is a need for hospitals, doctors… food support, schools.” And Syrians in the UK who were asylum seekers were struggling to be able to travel back to find their relatives, said Mr Al-Asmar.
The King heard from other grieving families and was shown pictures and films of the damage caused by the earthquake and was given a traditional offering of Syrian coffee and dates. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was also on the visit to the Syria House in Trafalgar Square, which will be used to draw attention to the scale of the humanitarian disaster. Earlier in the day, the King had met volunteers from the UK’s Turkish community who had also been organising help for people caught up in the earthquake.
The King, who had personally donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee fund, had said he was “deeply sorry” about the earthquake. Buckingham Palace said the King had wanted to meet these community groups involved in relief efforts. “He has been kept abreast of developments and is determined to help not just with financial support but to help with as much practical support as possible and raise awareness as to what is going on in both nations,” said a palace source.
