Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Doğan Hatun attended the General Assembly of the Disaster Management and Solidarity Association, stating that the municipality will build a Disaster Coordination Centre to serve the wider region.

Co-Mayor Hatun took part in the Association’s 1st Ordinary General Assembly held at the Çand Amed Culture and Congress Centre. In her remarks, she drew attention to the coordination efforts established by civil society organisations in the aftermath of the 6 February 2023 earthquakes centred in Maraş.

Recalling the work carried out during the earthquake response, Hatun said: “We set up a city-wide coordination system and identified damaged buildings. We established our own coordination, and specialist engineers went into the field. We determined where people would gather. We clarified, one by one, who would be responsible within this coordination—who would call whom, when, where and for what. Those who held authority and decision-making power told us ‘stop’; they stopped us. We then, within our institution (TMMOB), designated four separate coordination centres for Pazarcık, Elbistan, Adıyaman and Malatya.”

Emphasising the public’s instinct for solidarity throughout the process, Hatun continued: “When we told our people that we had established coordination and that, in these cities, not a stone had been left upon another, people came to our aid with their picks and shovels. When a step is taken for the people, the people respond wholeheartedly. In that difficult period, an effective coordination system was established. One of these structures was the ‘reconstruction’ coordination.”

‘We will launch the tender process for AKOM’

Noting that one of their priorities upon taking office at the Metropolitan Municipality was to establish a Disaster Coordination Centre (AKOM), Co-Mayor Hatun said preparations are ongoing. Stressing that AKOM will be a centre open to civil society organisations and will serve not only Diyarbakır but also cities across the region, she said:

“This centre will include training areas, emergency response equipment, warehouses and storage silos. There will also be accommodation facilities for specialists coming from outside. In 2026, we will roll up our sleeves and launch the tender process for the construction of this centre. This is not a place solely for the Disaster Affairs Department; it is also for civil society organisations, and we have planned accordingly. It will be a professional emergency support hub for the entire region. We have set ourselves the goal of building a major Disaster Coordination Centre,” she said.