Survivors of another boat disaster recount the horror
by Daily Sabah
ISTANBULMar 11, 2016 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Daily Sabah
Mar 11, 2016 12:00 am
As the tragedy unfolded in Ayvacık, another drama emerged in a different town on Turkey's Aegean coast. Survivors of Sunday's sinking off the town of Didim, that killed 25 people, were in the western city of İzmir to be handed the bodies of their relatives who died in the disaster.
They spoke to reporters about the fatal journey to Greece after they completed the grim task of identifying the bodies of their loved ones.
Waris Aslami was among the 42 people aboard the boat that left Didim. His five-year-old son and wife were among the victims. His wife was already missing when the boat sank, but he held on to his son. "We were in the water for 12 hours [before the rescue]. I held my son on my shoulders for six hours before a fisherman's boat spotted us. But my son was frozen to death before they reached us," he said. Their deaths further pushed Aslami, who had fled the Taliban's brutality in Afghanistan. "Hundreds of people are killed every day as the Taliban gets stronger. We came here to save our lives. We can't live in Afghanistan but we couldn't here, either. I don't know what these people will do. We have no options other than going back. Nobody helps us," he said.
Hamid Jawadi, another Afghan migrant, lost his wife Mahdiya Karimi, who was nine month's pregnant, in the disaster. She clung to life for 10 hours while Jawadi grabbed her to keep her afloat. But as he weakened, she also could not hold onto him anymore and she sank and drowned. "I did everything to keep her alive but I couldn't. She looked into my eyes before she died and said ‘I love you.' That was the last words she spoke to me. I am very sorry. I couldn't do anything for her body, but I can at least pray for her soul," he said as he pointed out that he cannot take her corpse back home, as he does not have any money to travel back to Afghanistan for a proper burial.
Jawed Eskandavi lost 11 relatives, including his wife, children, parents and other relatives. Like Jawadi, he has no means to transport their bodies back home and appealed to authorities to help him, but said he is afraid to travel back to Afghanistan for "risk of being killed."
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