A tragic earthquake hit Syria and Turkey and it took more than 30,000 lives. Many students and staff were affected by the tragedy and left heartbroken.

According to World Vision, on February 6th, 2023, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake, a series of strong tremors and aftershocks devastated southeast Turkey (officially the Republic of Türkiye) and northwest Syria. The death toll has passed 35,000 and continues to rise. Tens of thousands are injured and hundreds of thousands are displaced across a region already beset by turmoil from the nearly twelve-year conflict in Syria and the ongoing refugee crisis. After working desperately for a week to locate additional survivors, search and rescue teams from around the world are largely shifting to recovery efforts.

At Niles West, MENA, the Middle Eastern and North African club, provided a space on February 7th for students to reflect on the events and process them. During this time, the situation was still unfolding and the information was still coming out, so the club really wanted to have a discussion where students felt that they could express themselves and connect with other peers who also have connections to the events that took place.

The Sponsor of MENA, Reine Hanna, had strong opinions on the damage done to the communities.

“You have a situation now where  30,000 people sadly have been killed where hundreds of thousands more have been displaced, and their lives are uprooted and ruined. The most tragic aspect for me and other members of the club for the most part identify as part of the MENA community, is that knowledge that these communities have been caught in cycles of devastation and fear, whether through conflict or natural disasters, it’s a really difficult thing to process,” Hanna said.

In the past couple of years these communities, Syria especially has gone through war and devastation overall. Now since this earthquake, the Syrian people are going through more never getting a break.

“I am really just disheartened because the people of that region have already gone through so much the Syrian people have already been displaced so many times, nearly 20 times, and for this to happen it just makes matters worse,” senior Mustafa Al-Diraji said.

Many people have been affected by the community whether it be family or friends who were victims of the earthquake. For Hanna personally, she tragically lost a friend in Turkey.

“He was 27 years old and he was actually out of town staying at a hotel then you know overnight this happened and how do you process that, and I think for a lot of families that are affected its like how do you move forward it’s such a sudden thing, and then there’s like an impact on the individual level then collectively for turkey and Syria and the wider community that identify as this region, its a lot to process,” Hanna said.

The MENA club has been researching donations that people in our community could use to fund the reconstruction of destruction. During their infinity space, they found trusted organizations that people in this district can donate to and try to aid within Skokie.