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‘Everybody’s scared of me’: Delivering food to those in lockdown at home during coronavirus

Fear and low wages mark the lives of delivery guys

Borzou Daragahi
Istanbul
Thursday 30 April 2020 09:50 BST
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The Istanbul delivery guys on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic

Wearing his black face mask and gloves, Ferit Buyuk stacks a pile of pizza boxes into the insulated container on the back of his motor scooter before sliding his helmet on, revving up the engine and zipping out into streets devoid of traffic.

It is dusk, and the normally frenetic streets of Istanbul are mostly empty of pedestrians. Grocery stores will shutter within an hour, leaving delivery people like the 41-year-old and a small army of men the only way those confined to their homes under a strict coronavirus curfew the only source of food.

He approaches each apartment block cautiously, sizing up the building as he buzzes up, walking up the stairs with a stack of Turkish-style pizzas called pide, done up in the style of the Black Sea region around the city of Samsun from which he hails. Occasionally a customer greets him from behind a door, usually with their faces covered. Often he’s asked to just leave the pide at the door, and pick up money set on a chair or table.

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