'Things will be better': El Salvador's quake relief crew leaves Türkiye with message of hope

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ADANA, Türkiye (AA) – Times are tough right now but “things will be better,” the commander of El Salvador’s search team said as he led his team back home after days of rescue efforts in southern Türkiye.

“It is hard, but we need to stand up now and things will be better,” Lt. Col. Fernando Castaneda told Anadolu at the airport in Adana.

His 115-member team included soldiers and personnel from the country’s civil protection and health departments, as well as three sniffer dogs.

They arrived in Türkiye on Feb. 9 and were deployed in Kahramanmaras.

The crew helped rescue two people – a woman and a boy – in the region, which was the epicenter of the Feb. 6 earthquakes that have ravaged 11 southern Turkish provinces and claimed more than 38,000 lives so far.

Castaneda said they came with 10 tons of search and rescue equipment, besides medicine and food.

“At first, Turkish people did not where El Salvador is located. Now they know, as they found us everywhere,” he said.

In Türkiye, the team was accompanied by Hector Jaime, El Salvador’s ambassador to Ankara.

“This was El Salvador’s biggest overseas humanitarian mission so far,” Jaime told Anadolu.

“Previously, we would send relief to other countries but that was at smaller levels, like sending tents etc.,” he said.

Along with a junior diplomat from the embassy, Jaime was traveling between Kahramanmaras and Adana all these days that the El Salvador team was engaged in rescue operations.

El Salvador and Türkiye enjoy a “close relationship,” the ambassador said, recalling President Nayib Bukele’s trip to Ankara in January last year.

“It was the president himself who decided to extend our help in this hour of need,” said Jaime.

“This operation is very important for our (bilateral) relations,” said Jaime, adding seven agreements were signed between two nations during Bukele’s trip.

Last week’s earthquakes have affected more than 13 million people in 11 provinces across southern Türkiye – Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the catastrophe as the biggest disaster in the country’s modern history.

Around 100 countries have offered assistance so far, while more than 9,000 international search and rescue teams, including the one from Thailand, took part in relief operations.