Michiganders with ties to Syria and Turkey mobilize to help earthquake victims

Metro Detroiters with ties to Syria and Turkey say they are devastated by a powerful earthquake that struck the two nations, demolishing homes and killing thousands. And now, they are mobilizing with relief efforts, trying to raise money and send supplies to help victims.

"As someone who has family in Syria, this is devastating," Abed Ayoub, a Dearborn native partly of Syrian descent who is national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told the Free Press Monday. "The people there are in dire need of humanitarian aid and relief."

At least three charities in metro Detroit active in Muslim communities — Life for Relief and Development in Southfield, Mercy USA for Aid and Development in Plymouth and Helping Hand for Relief and Development in Southfield — have announced special relief efforts to help victims. And the American Syrian Arab Cultural Association in Troy announced a campaign "appealing to your generosity and spirit of compassion" to collect funds to support three groups in relief efforts: Saint Rita Foundation For Children, MedGlobal, and United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Buildings have been flattened in Turkey and in Syria, causing a death toll that is climbing by the hour," Mercy USA said on its website with a link to donate money. "Mercy-USA has relief coordination offices in some of the hardest hit areas so we're able to get to work immediately. We need your help to rush needed supplies."

In Michigan, there are 12,525 Syrian Americans and 2,507 Turkish Americans, according to 2019 census data.

Dr. Yahya Basha, a Royal Oak doctor with Basha Diagnostics and longtime Arab American leader born in Syria, said he has some relatives who were displaced by the earthquake. The disaster struck an area in northern Syria that is close to the Turkish border, where many were already struggling to live as refugees after escaping other parts of Syria during the decadelong war between the government and opposition forces.

"It is very devastating," Basha said in a phone interview. "A lot of refugees lived in those neighborhoods. ... That area got the worst of it."

Some of them had escaped war and bombings, surviving "with whatever they had on their back" when they fled their original homes. And now, after the earthquake, they are on the run again, some leaving for other areas or across the border to Turkey, Basha said.

Basha and other Syrian Americans are communicating using WhatsApp to get information and coordinate relief efforts.

The smaller Turkish American community in Michigan is also mobilizing to help.

"It is a devastating time for all of us, as we hear reports of the widespread damage and the toll it has taken on the people and communities affected," the Turkish American Cultural Association of Michigan (TACAM) said in a statement posted on its website. "The destruction of homes and buildings has left so many without a place to call their own, and the harsh winter weather only adds to the difficulties they are facing. In the face of such adversity, it is important that we come together as a community to provide support and comfort to those in need."

The group urged Turkish Americans to donate through a group called Bridge-to-Türkiye. The Turkish Embassy in the U.S. said on its Twitter account that people can donate items such as winter clothing, sleeping bags, hygiene products and tents by mailing or dropping them off at Turkish consulate sites. It also provided contact information for various parts of the U.S., including the consulate in Chicago that oversees Michigan.

For some Syrian Americans, sanctions the U.S. placed on Syria stemming from the war remain a challenge, Ayoub said.

More:Pope Benedict shaped Catholics in metro Detroit amid cultural clashes

Ayoub's group, the ADC, released a statement Monday calling on the U.S. government to lift sanctions and allow aid to freely enter the country.

"Lifting of the sanctions will open the doors for additional and supplemental aid that will provide immediate relief to those in need," Ayoub said in a statement from ADC.

Over the past couple of decades, Arab Americans and Muslims in Michigan have faced obstacles in helping needy people in the Middle East because of political conflicts and the changing alliances of the U.S. government. In the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, federal law enforcement raided and shut down some Islamic charities in metro Detroit and slapped some with criminal charges, scaring away potential donors and weakening their relief efforts.

The Treasury Department tightened its rules on some charities and bank accounts, advocates said.

The ADC said in its statement that currently "any U.S.-based aid and relief efforts are required to ensure that they follow the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) guidance, or risk prosecution. This adds unnecessary and inhumane delays to organizations and individuals looking to support those in immediate need. Lifting these sanctions to allow for the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid and disaster relief is the moral and humanitarian thing to do."

Other Syrian Americans oppose lifting the sanctions. Wa'el Alzayat, who is Syrian American and the CEO of Emgage, a Muslim American advocacy group with a branch in Michigan, said in a tweet that he is "seeing misguided but maybe well meaning calls to lift sanctions on the Syrian regime following the earthquake."

Alzayat said that "many of the affected areas are under opposition control and the regime prohibits the UN from sending aid there." He wrote that "lifting sanctions on Assad will mainly fund his" military.

In a statement released by Emgage, Alzayat said: "We urge the U.S. government to provide the government of Turkey with all possible assistance, and to ensure that any U.S. assistance going to Syria is channeled directly to those affected, and not through the corrupt Syrian regime.” 

For Basha and others, the earthquake is the latest tragedy for Syria. Basha has been outspoken against the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose father had crushed Basha's hometown of Hama in the 1980s after an uprising challenged the government. Others in metro Detroit's Syrian American community are more sympathetic toward the government. But on Monday, they were united in seeking ways to help.

There were already millions of refugees in Syria, Basha said. Now, they are without homes again and in the middle of a cold winter with fears of potentially more earthquakes.

"I heard the police in Turkish neighborhoods near the border escorting people out of their homes to go to a place where there is no building ... because there were forecasts or warnings of another earthquake," Basha said. "On WhatsApp groups, they're talking about the victims."

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or Twitter @nwarikoo