BY : DARI KWABENA MATHEW (+233555395925)
Ghana midfielder Priscilla Okyere has expressed her emotional trauma after surviving the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey on Monday.
Okyere, who plays for Hatayspor’s women’s team, is currently seeking refuge in Ankara, the capital of Turkey.
The earthquake has caused immense destruction and has claimed the lives of more than 20,000 individuals in both Turkey and Syria, with the death toll expected to increase.
“I have not been sleeping for four days – I’m so scared to go to sleep,” Okyere told BBC Sport Africa.
“Even today, we had a safe place to sleep. I haven’t closed my eyes from 5am til now.
“When someone bangs the door, I wake up because I’m scared. I don’t want to close my eyes and realise this thing is happening again.”
The harrowing experience has left Okyere deeply affected. Although most people in southern Turkey are used to feeling tremors, Okyere initially believed that the earthquake was just a normal occurrence.
“I was terrified. I cried for days,” she explained.
“I can’t imagine how lucky we were to get out from that situation, because most people couldn’t get out. But we were able to.”
Okyere joined Hatayspor six months ago from Israeli club Tel-Aviv Beersheva.
Like most people who live in southern Turkey, the club’s players had felt tremors before. So when the earthquake struck in the early hours of Monday, she believed it was normal.
“We were coming from a game in Istanbul and we weren’t home until around 2am,” she said.
“We had to shower and then get some sleep. At first, I thought I was dreaming because since we came to Hatay, I experienced (tremors) two times. Sometimes the building would just shake within 30 seconds and it stops.
“When it happened, I thought it was a normal thing but I realised this was much more intense than the previous ones.”
“When I got down, the buildings were just collapsing, and everybody was crying, trying to find shelter,” she said.
“It was raining heavily outside, and everyone was cold. We were not wearing any jackets – nothing. We had gone outside barefoot.
“We weren’t even thinking about how cold we were at that moment. What we wanted to think about was how to get our passports.
“We had to find a shelter in someone’s car for almost five hours before the whole thing calmed down, and then we were able to go back to the house.”
Sadly, her compatriot Christian Atsu, who plays for Hatayspor’s men’s team, and the club’s sporting director, Taner Savut, are still missing.
