Sattam Al Kaddoura Syrian immigrant who arrived in Argentina in 1967 and lost at least 15 relatives in the earthquake that affected that country and part of Turkey In the early hours of Monday, he keeps abreast of what is happening in his hometown through a network of cousins and nephews who, from different countries, seek to know the fate of their loved ones in a tragedy that up to now has been going on for more than 7,800 fatalities confirmed.
Al Kaddour was born in 1939 in the Syrian town of Hama, close to the Turkish border, and in 1967 he traveled to Argentina where he settled and prospered as a tourist businessman specializing in the bridge between our country and the Arab world, which made it easier for him to maintain regular visits with his relatives in the Middle East for all these years.
In dialogue with Télam in his office located in Barrio Norte, Sattam stated: “I received the first news of the earthquake through Al Jazeera, because for work and family reasons it is a sign that we are always attentive to; and when I saw that my town was in the affected area, we immediately began trying to contact the family.
And he continued: “My family is from the Syrian city of Hama where we have been for hundreds of years and there are many of us with the same last name, like a tribe, although due to the internal conflicts in my country my closest relatives are part of the millions who had to migrate and settled on the Turkish side of the border to stay close to home; there they were surprised by the earthquake and as far as we could find out from cousins and nephews who are in Europe and the United States, we have at least 15 deaths”.
The tourist businessman met Edna Debs in Argentina, a Syrian immigrant from Aleppo with whom he formed a family that already has three children and seven grandchildren.
Along with her husband, Edna said that “for many years we made two or three visits a year to the family, but the last one was in 2010 because then the conflict began in our country that made travel very unsafe; it is greatly missed and distressing. having to live moments like this from a distance”.
Sattam added that “today I was able to establish contact with a yerba mate trader who lives in the area of southern Turkey where my family is and who was saved from the earthquake because he had traveled to Istanbul that night, he is fine, but he is accompanying to his family in the hospital and We agreed that we are going to keep in touch to find out how everyone is there”.
Sattam noted that “efforts are still concentrated on trying to rescue those who are alive from under the rubble, but it is very important that a large part of the international community is already sending aid and that Turkey, which hosts millions of Syrian migrants, is facilitating everything; this is a very painful episode, but those peoples have been in that place for millennia and they are going to know how to recover”.
Finally, Edna added: “barely a few hours have passed since the tragedy, but we are sure that soon the Arab community in Argentina, which is very large, will begin to organize itself to add their collaboration.”
