Fikri Töre from Midin is Still Missing After the Earthquake in Adiyaman: This is the Story

This Sunday night, Fikri Töre (27) from Midin in the Turabdin region stayed at the Isias hotel in Adiyaman that collapsed because of the earthquake. In the morning, his family and friends drove to Adiyaman and are still desperately searching one hospital after another in the region. The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”), with whom Fikri works, has been in close contact with them and until last night and today we requested help from officials in Ankara to locate and find him, but nobody has found him yet.

Fikri is an Aramean tour guide who spent the night in Adiyaman with a group of fellow tour guides from Türkiye. After their hotel collapsed, conflicting reports and rumors began to spread via the social media. One of them falsely claimed that Fikri was found and on his ay home.

In reality, Fikri was not reachable by phone and nobody has seen or spoken with him – until this hour. Part of the confusion arose when a list from the Ministry of Tourism was circulated via WhatsApp that listed the first and last name of persons who were found and dismissed. Fikri reportedly was among those who were released, implying that he was sound and well.

It took us a while to find the contact details of the person on the list who was responsible for this claim. When we finally reached him last night, it turned out to be the group leader, a tour guide who organized the trip. He admitted that he himself had not seen Fikri, but he said that his colleagues had seen him and that Fikri was also taken to one of the hospitals. However, even these claims could neither be stated with full certainty nor verified.

Sadly, there is great chaos in Adiyaman. The earthquake has raged the city and the heroes who are trying to help the victims with their limited resources are overburdened (the world urgently needs to send more help and experts!), while it is hard to obtain reliable information amidst this chaos. So, one of the city’s three hospitals was damaged and closed, while Fikri could not be found in the other two hospitals. From Ankara we learned that his name could not be found in the system of those who were hospitalized in Türkiye. So his family went back to the collapsed hotel, hoping that they could perhaps find him there, and still keeps asking and looking around.

Let us patiently wait for a statement from his family who will share news when there is news. Let us remain hopeful and have faith that Fikri is still alive, hopefully in one of Türkiye’s hospitals! The search continues. With God’s grace, we hope to find him alive as soon as possible.

 

FIKRI & WCA

In 2020, 2021 and 2022, we granted Fikri scholarships for his university study of Culture and Tourism in Çanakkale; last year, he was one of 25 Aramean students from Turabdin whom we supported. As we believed in Fikri and he believed in the WCA, we began working successfully together and we remain hopeful that we can and will continue our mission together.

To illustrate our fruitful cooperation, let us mention just these following notable examples:

1. In March 2022, Fikri recommended the WCA President to ask Türkiye’s Minister of Culture and Tourism to add Aramaic as a language for certified tour guides in Türkiye. Later, letters were sent to the Ministry and we have come close to maybe realize this.
2. In June 2022, we invited Fikri to be part of the WCA’s delegation on a historic mission with government officials and experts from Ankara and Midyat to inspect the sites in Turabdin which Türkiye requests UNESCO to recognize and promote (photos: pp. 4-5).
3. In July 2022, WCA helped save the Harvest of Midin after Fikri requested this on behalf of his village: 42 Aramean farmer families were delighted with our assistance and Fikri coordinated this project locally on WCA’s behalf (photos: p. 7)!
4. In November 2022, we invited Fikri again, this time to join us on our amazing Turabdin Youth Trip so that he could gain practical experience because he was about to become Türkiye’s first Aramean Aramaic-speaking tour guide! See these photos and video.
5. In December 2022, we requested Fikri to coordinate on our behalf the annual WCA Christmas Gifts that were sent to 708 Aramean children in Turabdin!
6. Shortly before, he had completed his study and we began to organize our 5^th Turabdin Trip, now to enjoy a traditional Easter Celebration in Turabdin from 11-18 April 2023 (a few other trips and projects for 2023 are still in the pipeline!), and Fikri very much looked forward to this trip and be our official Aramean Aramaic-speaking tour guide!

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Download the Press Release here in PDF.