Lost in translation: the violence of language in the aftermath of the Turkey-Syria earthquake

Laura Lamberti
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - While the numbers of deaths and injuries caused by the devastating tremor that struck Turkey and Syria last February paint a clear picture of the destruction caused by the earthquake, a year in, no data is available regarding how many of those affected by the seism only spoke Kurdish, despite this trait having cost them their right to access emergency resources in the aftermath of the disaster. Their stories survive solely through the oral history project launched by a coalition of translators providing services in crisis situations.

On February 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria and was followed by a 7.5 magnitude aftershock hours later. 53,537 people lost their lives, and more than 110,000 others were injured in the tremor across 11 provinces according to official data from the Turkish interior ministry.

Despite several of the affected provinces being home to a significant Kurdish population, activists and NGO workers claim local authorities did not make emergency resources available in Kurdish in the aftermath of the disaster, while also obstructing access to organizations that wanted to reach the Kurdish majority areas. “We have recorded that there were a lot of Kurdish NGOs based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Bashur [Kurdistan Region], that were trying to help these people with basic aid, but unfortunately, they had a barrier,” said Raman Salah, the head of the Kurdish translation team of international NGO Respond Crisis Translation. 

On the same day of the earthquake, Turkey’s Directorate of Immigration Management’s Foreigners’ Communication Center shared a post announcing that it would provide translation support to all earthquake zones in seven languages. Kurdish was not among the seven. 


Respond offers translation services for 170 languages, and describes itself as a “coalition of language practitioners fighting to dismantle systemic language rights violations," by applying their language skills to enable access to services such as legal support, social services, and healthcare.

Following the earthquake, Amnesty International reiterated that “Survivors of humanitarian disasters have a right to timely, relevant, accessible and accurate information in a language they understand, without discrimination. Provision of such information can prevent further loss of life.”

Amnesty’s report also criticized the Syrian government for preventing “aid from reaching predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods in areas under the control of the Kurdish civilian council in the city of Aleppo, which were severely impacted by the earthquake.” 

Given the access barriers to the Kurdish majority areas in both Syria and Turkey, where, as emerged through videos that surfaced on social media, foreign disaster teams were stuck at airports due to a lack of government transportation and support, Respond’s initial efforts relied on a network of friends and family who informed team members of the needs on the ground, Salah explained. 

“They were trying their best to inform us about any urgent translation needs that we could help with, to guide these people through what to do, how to protect themselves, how to stay warm at night, and how to get food and any guidance books or aid that we could translate,” Salah recounted.

Despite the limited room for action for volunteers wanting to provide translation services due to the access barriers, the Respond Kurdish team was spurred forward by incoming stories about people too afraid to ask for help in Kurdish, due to the fear of being refused it on the grounds of their Kurdish identity.

Dilan*, a language justice advocate and Sorani speaker from the Kurdistan Region now living abroad and volunteering with the Kurdish Red Crescent told Respond that “We were hearing some stories that there were a lot of elderly people crying out for help in their dialects - Kurmanji - but no one could understand or communicate with them even if there were so many NGOs to get them rescued. There was still a huge barrier between them.”

The 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria however was not the first instance in which Kurds were barred from accessing resources in the aftermath of a natural disaster due to a lack of information in Kurdish.

In 2017, a strong earthquake hit the Kurdish city of Kermanshah, in western Iran (Rojhelat). The quake resulted in the death of at least 620 people and left over 9,000 injured across various districts in the province. The impact was widespread, affecting a total of 427,266 individuals in eight cities, according to the Red Crescent. 

Gordyaen Jermayi, a Kurmanji speaker from the city of Urmia, interviewed by Respond as part of the “Kurdish storytelling project” launched in the aftermath of the Turkey-Syria earthquake, described how the Iranian state only provided services in Persian.

“I know stories of people who have suffered, who have been injured, but because they couldn’t speak Persian or couldn’t understand Persian, they couldn’t get the services that they needed,” he said.

These instances are inscribed within a long history of weaponization of national disasters against Kurds. 

Hêvî*, a Kurmanji speaker from the Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey, told Respond that in the aftermath of the February 2023 earthquake, the Turkish government failed to provide Kurdish language support to Turkish and international NGOs working within Kurdish communities, going as far as claiming that “The Turkish authorities do not provide them [international organizations] with a Kurdish translator or interpreter! They don’t announce job opportunities for Kurdish speakers.”

While the Respond team ceaselessly interviewed activists, translators and survivors in the aftermath of the earthquake, in an attempt to record and archive their testimonies regarding the role of language violence in exacerbating the consequences of the disaster among Kurdish communities, as powerful as individual stories are, Salah noted the absolute need for numerical information regarding said impact. Most of the testimonies recorded by Respond’s team have yet to be shared, said Salah, noting that they are still in the process of determining what the most impactful way to use these oral accounts in pursuit of language justice is. 

“One of the biggest issues is surveying, getting numbers. Okay, we have Syria, we have Turkey… but it's not only about people who speak Arabic or Turkish. There's other ethnicities, there's other languages, so we are trying to call out [to the Turkish government], to start surveying, or let international and Kurdish NGOs conduct surveys in Kurdish areas, to record, build a database of people affected by lack of language access in the context of the earthquake.”

In the face of the systemic discrimination of Kurds in the context of emergency situations, Dilan* eloquently voiced at once the will to continue contributing to rescue and support efforts whenever disasters may strike, and the deep-seated frustration of knowing no group of volunteers will be able to reverse structural violence perpetuated by all-powerful states.

 “I can translate, I can assist people when they are in a natural disaster, or my friends and colleagues, we can do small things. But the responsibility is not in our small hands.”

*The names are aliases chosen by the subjects to protect their anonymity.