Earthquake in Turkey: The children whose names were erased

The injured children at Adana City Hospital are too young to know how much they have lost.

I watched as doctors in the intensive care unit fed an injured six-month-old girl whose parents could not be found.

There are hundreds more cases of unidentified children whose parents are dead or untraceable.

The earthquake destroyed their homes and now their names are taken.

Dr Nursah Keskin holds the hand of the baby girl in intensive care – known only by the tag on her bed: “Anonymous”.

He had several fractures, a black eye and his face was badly bruised; but he turned and smiled at us.

“We know where he was found and how he got here. But we are trying to find an address. The search continues,” said Dr Keskin, a pediatrician and deputy director of the hospital.

Many of these cases are children rescued from collapsed buildings in other regions. They were taken to Adana because the hospital was still standing.

Many other medical centers in the disaster zone have fallen or been damaged. Adana became the center of rescue.

In a transfer, newborn babies were brought here from a maternity ward in a hard-hit hospital in the city of Iskenderun.

Turkish health officials say across the country’s disaster zone there are now more than 260 injured children they have not identified.

That number could rise significantly as more areas are reached and the scale of homelessness fully emerges.

I followed Dr Keskin through the crowded corridors. Earthquake survivors lie on trolleys, some wrapped in blankets on mattresses in an emergency area. We headed to the surgery ward, also filled with injured children.

We met a girl who the doctors said was five or six years old. He was asleep and on intravenous drips. Staff said he had a head injury and multiple fractures.

I ask if he has told them his name.

“No, it’s just eye contact and movements,” said Dr Ilknur Banlicesur, a pediatric surgeon.

“Because of the shock, these kids can’t speak at all. They know their names. [try to] talk,” he explained.

Health officials are trying to match the unidentified children with addresses. But often the addresses are ruins. In at least 100 cases, unnamed children have been taken into care.

Turkish social media was filled with posts showing the missing children, giving details of which floor they lived in the collapsed buildings, expressing hope that they might have been rescued and taken to hospital.

Surviving relatives and health ministry officials are traveling between medical centers trying to find them.

At the hospital in Adana, the wounded continued to arrive. They were shocked and tired.

Everyone here is a survivor, patients and medics.

Dr Keskin lost relatives due to the earthquake and took shelter in the hospital with his children when the aftershocks hit.

I asked him how he coped.

“I’m good, I’m trying to be good, because [the children] we really need it.

“But I thank God, I still have children. I can’t think of a greater pain for a mother than losing her child.”

Next to us, young patients in the wards are waiting for their parents to return.

Some meet again. But others remain unknown children of the earthquake.