After the catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and Syria, around 1.5 million people are suddenly homeless, and tents are scarce in the first few days. Allegations against the Turkish Red Crescent are now being made: the country's largest aid organization apparently did not pass on the urgently needed goods to other aid organizations free of charge.
The Turkish Red Crescent has been criticized for not donating tents for earthquake victims to another aid organization, but instead selling them. As the newspaper "Cumhuriyet" reported on , the Red Crescent sold 2050 tents to the aid organization Ahbap for the equivalent of almost 2.3 million euros. This is a "scandal", wrote the journalist Murat Agirel.
"Turkey's largest charity, the Red Crescent, sold tents instead of giving them free to those in need when people begged for them three days after the earthquake," Agirel said. Turkey's Red Crescent leader Kerem Kinik confirmed on Twitter that Kizilay Cadir, a subsidiary of his organization responsible for making the tents, provided them to Ahbap "at cost".
Several opposition politicians called for Kinik's resignation. "Shame on you," wrote the leader of the nationalist Iyi party, Meral Aksener, on Twitter.
The Turkish government is accused of not having distributed enough tents and humanitarian aid in several places after the earthquake. Not enough rescue teams were deployed either. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called those who criticize the Red Crescent "dishonest and despicable". The leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, then tweeted that Erdogan was "insulting the earthquake victims".
According to official figures, more than 46,000 people died in the severe earthquake in the early morning of February 6 in Syria and Turkey.
