In a show of support for children impacted by the earthquake in Turkey, soccer fans threw stuffed animals onto the pitch during a match between Beşiktaş and Antalyaspor on Sunday.

The game stopped at four minutes and 17 seconds to correspond with the time the earthquake struck southeastern Turkey – 4:17 a.m. local time on February 6.

Fans showered the stadium with teddy bears and other stuffed toys of all colors and sizes during the match at Vodafone Park.

These will be sent by Beşiktaş to children impacted by the earthquake, which has killed about 50,000 people across Turkey and Syria.

Players rushed to collect the stuffed animals while the scoreboard screen flashed with the license plate numbers of the eleven Turkish provinces impacted by the earthquake.

Toys are passed onto the pitch for children affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
Huseyin Yavuz/dia images/Getty Images
Some Besiktas fans also chanted “government resign” in protest against the official response to the disaster, viewed by many in Turkey as being slow and insufficient.

In some areas, people complained that there were no organized relief efforts and that scores of bodies were slow to be collected, causing the stench of death to spread.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s partner in government, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) head Devlet Bahçeli, called for soccer games to be played without fans and ended his Beşiktaş membership in light of the anti-government chants.

On Saturday, Fenerbahçe fans also chanted slogans calling for the government to resign.

Some commercial sex workers in the Federal Capital Territory have decried low patronage in their business due to the scarcity of naira notes.

Some of them who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Sunday, February 19, 2023, said the scarcity of the notes is a threat and had crippled their businesses.

They said that although the currency swap policy is commendable, the current mode of implementation is a challenge to their business.

Miss Alexandra Tricia (pseudonym), a commercial sex worker, said her customers have reduced drastically due to the current ‘no cash syndrome’.

She described the development as both frustrating and slow for the business.

“The business is no longer booming like before because there is no cash anywhere. Some of my customers will come and after negotiations, they will ask if I have an account so they can transfer the money to me,” she said. 

“When I give them the account number, they will press their phones and tell me that they have transferred some money. The worst part of it is that you will see their own alert in their phones but most times you will not get your own alert.

“They will want you to start the service immediately without you getting an alert and when you refuse, some of them will start making trouble.

“In fact, there is one of my colleagues that a customer sent a transfer alert to but up till now, the money is still pending but she has serviced the man,” she said.

Another sex worker, Miss Ifedi Ote (pseudonym), a university dropout, said many of her colleagues in the business had left temporarily due to the current cash crunch.

She said the development had caused customers who had little cash at hand to pay ‘next to nothing’ for their services.

“Clients who have cash will price you as low as N1,500 to N3,000. When you refuse, they will tell you that the amount is the only cash they have on them and because I need cash, I will be forced to accept the price,” she said. 

“Even the Point of Sale agent where we usually direct our customers to for money has suddenly run out of cash for the past two weeks.

“I think this policy is a good one because it is meant to curb crime but the banks are not implementing it well,” she said.

Another commercial sex worker, Tracy Ehigbere, appealed to the authorities concerned to urgently address issues around the currency swap policy.

NAN reports that some of the mammy markets and brothels visited along FCT satellite towns which usually witnessed beehives of activities were deserted.