Among the tens of thousands of people injured after the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey on Monday, hundreds of infants are languishing in hospitals without their parents, even without knowing their names.
A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) shed light on the human tragedies left by the earthquake, including “children without names”.
In Adana, one of the affected cities in southern Turkey, a bed in the intensive care unit of a hospital with a 6-month-old girl lying on it and bearing the word “unknown”, summarizes the tragedy of children who were taken to hospitals without their families, while they could not identify themselves.
“We know where she was found and how she got here. But we are trying to find an identity. The search continues,” pediatrician Nursa Keskin, the hospital’s deputy director, told the BBC.
According to the doctor, the infant suffers fractures in various parts of her small body, while severe bruises appear on her face.
Turkish health officials say that the affected area in the country currently has more than 260 infected children that they have not been able to identify, but that number may rise significantly as more affected places are reached.
Rescue teams hope to find more survivors in Turkey
These children either lost their parents in the earthquake, or were separated from them.
Officials try to match the unknown children to the addresses they came from, but for the most part their homes are reduced to rubble.
On the other hand, social media platforms in Turkey are filled with pictures of missing children, with details of the floors they lived on in collapsed buildings, in the hope that they might be found.
The surviving relatives and health ministry officials are moving between medical centers trying to find them.
