Deepening poverty and a rising hunger threshold have pushed people in Turkey into a winter filled with anxiety. As electricity and heating bills climb, food prices soar and inflation continues to erode incomes, households struggling to survive say they are praying for a mild winter. Each passing year grows harsher than the one before, and many can no longer meet even their most basic needs; this winter, they cannot afford wood or coal to keep their stoves burning.
In the Kaynartepe neighborhood of Bağlar (Rezan) district in Amed, where natural gas infrastructure does not exist, residents expressed anger at the soaring prices of wood and coal. Several said they have been heating their homes by burning collected waste paper, and that the rising costs mean they will face this winter in the cold.
According to data published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkish acronym: TÜİK) in October 2025, annual consumer price inflation reached 32.87 percent. For low-income households, such a high rate has translated into a dramatic loss of purchasing power. The relative poverty rate based on income was already announced at 13.6 percent for 2024. These figures confirm what residents are living through: rapidly rising prices are making it increasingly difficult for families on fixed or low incomes to meet even their essential needs.
The neighbourhood suffocates under stove smoke each winter
In Kaynartepe, one of the oldest neighborhoods of Diyarbakır (Amed), residents have been struggling with poverty and unemployment for decades. Deep economic divides across the city have kept the neighborhood’s social fabric largely unchanged, preserving its street culture while families with many children fight to get by. Because of its tightly packed housing and narrow alleyways, most homes receive little to no sunlight.
The long-running in-situ urban renewal project has prevented natural gas infrastructure from being installed, leaving the neighborhood trapped in conditions reminiscent of the 1990s. Women, children and shopkeepers continue to live side by side in a tightly-knit social environment, but the approach of winter brings growing anxiety.
With no access to natural gas, residents heat their homes with wood-burning stoves, yet rising prices mean many cannot afford wood or coal, and the fear of high bills keeps them from using electric heaters. Neighbors, worried and exhausted, summed up their situation simply: “In winter, our children are always in the hospital. We are miserable.” They are calling on the authorities to address the hardship they face year after year.
The wood is expensive, and the bill too
Ramazan Tuzak, a resident of the neighborhood, described the hardship and the growing crisis and said: “I moved my house here in 1991. For years, they kept talking about urban renewal, they said something would be done, but nothing ever happened. There is no natural gas here. Everyone in this neighborhood is poor; a ton of wood has reached 15,000 TL.
People can neither buy wood nor turn on an electric heater. Right now, we have nothing we can use to keep warm. These people need support. Sick residents cannot endure the winter at all. The smell of coal and smoke only makes their illnesses worse. I live in an eight-storey building, how long am I supposed to keep carrying wood upstairs every day? Those who cannot buy wood use electric heaters, and anyone who does that ends up facing electricity bills of thousands of liras at the end of the month.”
In winter, the street outside is warmer than my home
Seventy-five-year-old Besra Polat, who lives alone in a sunless house, said her income is not enough for wood or electricity bills and that, just like last year, she will spend this winter in the cold.
Besra Polat said, “We used to receive coal assistance, but for about four years now we have gotten nothing. We no longer receive food assistance either. I live alone here in a rented house, surviving on my old-age pension. The money I get is not enough for my rent or for heating. Last winter I could not buy any wood at all, so I stayed in someone else’s home for the season. This year I cannot afford wood or coal either. I do not know what I am going to do. Even a person living alone has so many expenses. I have not set up the stove yet, but I will most likely have to use an electric heater. The pension I receive goes straight to the bills. My home does not get any sunlight. I will spend this winter shivering again. In winter, the street outside is warmer than my house.”
We spend our winters in hospitals
Ferda Kaya, another resident facing the same hardship, criticised the soaring prices in stark terms and said: “We get through the winter by collecting waste paper from outside and burning it. Bills have already skyrocketed, and with so many children, we cannot do anything in winter. We cannot afford wood or coal. Everything used to be better in the past; whatever people are doing now, they should support us. With the minimum wage, you go to the market for three weeks and the money is gone. In winter we are either in the hospital or searching for somewhere warm. That is all our life becomes. There is nothing else we can do. We have no choice but to survive however little we can.”