‘Tent sales be suspended in times of disaster’

The sale of tents, which ignited public anger during the Feb. 6 earthquakes, will be suspended in times of disaster, the head of the Turkish Red Crescent has announced.

"At the Red Crescent, we always carry out an internal process of evaluation, review and correction," Fatma Meriç Yılmaz said, stressing that if any practice puts a question mark on the credibility of Red Cresent, it should not be repeated.

"As for the tent issue, it is necessary to set up the system well. If the system isn't well thought out from the beginning to the end, sometimes you can have such errors. We have a tent subsidiary that has been making tents since 1954. It continues to operate by bearing the cost of production. It is considered normal under ordinary circumstances. If exceptional rules for times of disaster are not defined, such problems can occur," Yılmaz stated.

Yılmaz announced that sales of these tents will be suspended during times of disaster saying, "When there is a disaster, none of our investment companies will be able to make any sales without the permission of the Board of Directors. A decision will be taken by the Board of Directors, and only then will they be able to make sales. Because in times of disaster, priorities change completely. It will not happen again," Yılmaz continued.

The Turkish Red Crescent had come under intense criticism with its sale of 2,050 tents, which were in the warehouse at the time, to a local aid organization in the first days of the quakes that claimed the lives of more than 50,000 people in Türkiye's south.