Twenty-four children who died in last week’s catastrophic earthquake following a volleyball tournament have all been laid to rest.

The school kids – aged between 11 and 14 – were killed alongside 10 parents, four teachers and a trainer when their hotel in the south-eastern city of Adiyaman collapsed.

The team was reportedly from Turkish Maarif College in Famagusta, in the Turkish Cypriot-controlled North, and had travelled for the contest.

They had celebrated a victory and gone to bed on the 10th floor when tremors rocked the area.

Rescue teams dug through the wreckage to find bodies and they were repatriated.

Their coffins were carried past heartbroken relatives and government officials at Ercan International Airport in Nicosia.

Crowds of mourners then wept during back-to-back funerals across the weekend.

The last two services for trainer Osman Cetintas and team member Havin Kilic were held on Sunday.

A relative of one of the children has said the tragedy has ‘devastated’ locals.

Dr Mesel Veli said: ‘My cousin’s child was one of the volleyball players.

‘The unbearably tragic outcome of this school trip to participate in the tournament has devastated the local community.’

One resident in Nicosia has said the island is ‘so small that everyone knows of someone whose child or grandchild died’. 

‘There’s just a really sad feeling here since it happened. They’ve been having funerals for the children for days’, they told Sky News.

Ersin Tatar, the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, said: ‘We bid farewell to our Champion Angels with our tears.

‘Our pain is big. I share the grief of the families. All of us were heartbroken.

‘Our Champion Angels will always be with us, they will live in our hearts. May they rest in peace, may their place be heaven.’

Two magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes struck nine hours apart in south-eastern Turkey and Syria on February 6.

The natural disasters have now taken at least 35,000 lives, but the death toll is expected to rise still.

Search teams have been sifting the rubble of amid towns and cities, in what is increasingly becoming an operation to recover bodies from beneath piles of rubble that used to be people’s homes.

The UN says the search and rescue phase of this operation is ‘coming to a close’ as officials turn their attention to providing survivors with shelter, food and healthcare.

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