[imagesource:flickr]

Police and social workers are trying to figure out how a 5-year-old Turkish boy ended up wandering around alone some 2400km away from where he was separated from his family by the February earthquake.

The boy was found wandering the streets of the Dutch city Maastricht where police took him for some ice cream before he was taken to a police station for identification.

At the copshop, a Turkish-speaking policeman spoke to the boy, who said that his parents were in Turkey and that they had been separated by the earthquake that hit that country. The child was taken into the care of social workers and taken to a shelter.

It is currently unclear exactly how the child managed to get to the Netherlands, and the Turkish Embassy in The Hague has asked the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for further information on the matter. The Turkish Embassy has however lashed out at the Dutch, saying that they had not been notified about the boy.

“It seems that the child is not Dutch, because he only speaks Turkish, they had him talk to the Turkish-origin police. In this case, they gave information to the Dutch Social Services when they should have called us.”

The Disaster-Child Civil Coordination Team, formed after the earthquake in Turkey, has noted that they have raised the alarm over increased child trafficking following the wake of the devastation, saying that the chaos was a perfect opportunity for traffickers to abduct people.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, killing over 50,000 people and injuring over 100,000 in Turkey alone. An estimated 14 million people were affected in Turkey alone. An unforgiving winter following the quake meant that many who survived the initial horror were left to die from hypothermia as they awaited rescue.

It is as yet unclear if the boy’s parents have been identified and contacted, but we hope the child gets reunited with them. No child should have to go through so much and be alone.

[source:dailystar]