Enlarge image
Balloons on rubble in Antakya, Turkey
Photo:
Nir Elias / REUTERS
More than 47,000 people have died as a result of the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
Volunteers in Turkey have now started a campaign to commemorate the victims - especially the smallest among them.
In the rubble of destroyed buildings and streets in Hatay on Sunday they placed red, blue and pink balloons - one for each child who died.
They tied the balloons to cables and metal parts that are still sticking out of the ground.
The photographer Ogun Sever Okur initiated the project »My Last Present to the Children«.
"Every time we tie down a balloon, my heart hurts," Okur told the British BBC.
Up to 1,500 balloons have been distributed so far, "but we will continue until we have hopefully reached every part of the city, every house where a child has lost its life," the activist continued.
Rescue and recovery operations have been ongoing since the 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria two weeks ago.
The affected area is huge - it covers an area of 103,000 square kilometers and includes a population of 13.5 million people.
In the civil war country Syria, the situation was devastating for many people even before the earthquake.
According to the UN, more than 15 million people needed some form of help before.
Baerbock and Faeser travel to the crisis area
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry announced that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) will travel to the region around the epicenter near the city of Gaziantep on Tuesday to get an idea of the situation.
Infectious disease warning
Meanwhile, the EU health authority ECDC warns that infectious diseases could spread in the crisis area.
Food-borne and water-borne diseases, as well as respiratory infections and vaccine-preventable infections pose a risk in the coming period, the agency said.
Damaged water and power lines meant limited access to clean water, poor sanitation and inadequate refrigeration for food, ECDC said.
It is possible that the number of cholera cases in the affected areas will increase in the coming weeks - a disease that is already a problem in civil war-torn north-west Syria.
ala/dpa