AFAD Pressures Hatay Defne Container Residents to Evacuate Within 15 Days

Earthquake survivors living in the Cengiz Topel container city in Hatay's Defne district told Cumhuriyet Newspaper that AFAD officials have been pressuring them to vacate the containers within 15 days at the latest.

An unnamed earthquake survivor said: “A woman and a man came from AFAD. They told us: You will leave by the 15th at the latest. If you don’t leave the container, we will remove it by police force, and you won’t be able to collect your belongings.”

A woman whose spouse is retired calculated that they cannot survive on a 20,000 TL pension: “If I pay 15,000 to a real estate agent and 15,000 as a deposit to the landlord, what will I eat? My house remains in the reserve area, but because it was destroyed, there was not even a lottery draw for it.”

More than two and a half years have passed since the earthquake; the February 6, 2023 earthquakes rendered more than 38,000 residences uninhabitable in Hatay. Since that date, the number of permanent housing units built remains a subject of debate in official statements from the Provincial Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD). Families continuing to live in container cities face the fear of eviction at a time when rental costs are steadily rising.

In Hatay, average monthly rent was in the 5,000–6,000 TL range at the beginning of 2023, while the same apartments reached 18,000–25,000 TL by mid-2025; a 20,000 TL pension no longer covers even a single month’s rent on its own.