'I've lost 27 family members'

BEKIR IS FIGHTING TO STAY STRONG AFTER THE DISASTER IN TURKEY AND SYRIA

- Lizzie Wilson

It was midday in Sydney, Australia on February 6 when Turkish-Australian dad-of-six Bekir Kilic received a phone call that turned his entire world upside down.

Some 14,000km away in Osmaniye, a city in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, an unimaginable tragedy was unfolding as a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the neighbourhood where Bekir was born.

As word of the disaster reached the Kilic family, gathered at their home in Sydney’s west, they prayed their beloved relatives would be found alive. Sadly, the good news never came.

“We have lost 27 of our nearest and dearest from this catastrophic disaster – and there could be more,” a heartbroken Bekir, 54, shares with New Idea.

“From my son-in-law calling me 20 minutes after it hit to hearing this – it’s grief on an unimaginable scale,” he says through tears.