Humanitarian devastation continues in northwestern Syria one month after the earthquakes

The organizations demand more help for a population that has been chaining needs for twelve years

MADRID, 6 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Northwestern Syria is struggling to recover from the devastation caused by the earthquakes on February 6, with new problems for four million people already living in one of the areas most in need of humanitarian aid in the world, as witnessed by international organizations on the ground.

The UN estimates that the homes of 2.7 million people suffered some kind of damage from the tremors. More than 500,000 were forced to leave their homes in one of the countries that even before the earthquakes had one of the highest rates of internally displaced persons in the world - 6.8 million in total.

The organizations agree that the earthquakes are nothing more than a new tragic chapter for a country that has been immersed in a war for more than a decade. In fact, the tremors shook parts controlled by the Bashar al Assad regime as well as areas controlled by rebel forces, making it difficult to even verify an official death toll.

The director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the region, Adele Khodr, warns that "as we approach 12 long years of conflict, millions of families live on the brink of disaster, feeling as if the world I would have forgotten them." "Even before these catastrophic earthquakes, the humanitarian needs among the children of Syria were higher than ever," she said in a statement.

The person in charge of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in the region, Carsten Hansen, also stresses that there is "a worsening humanitarian crisis" to which a natural disaster is now added. Some people, he adds, "survive on a bag of bread and canned food, which is all they have received in the last month," during which at least humanitarian aid has been allowed.

Raja, for example, lives with his family under a tent for the first time in ten years. He tells the NRC that now "little children talk about death" and wonder, "Are we going to die?" Many families are now living in temporary shelters, a lifeline especially for families with children -- more than 3.7 million children have been affected by the earthquakes across Syria, according to UNICEF.

Another of the pending challenges is to guarantee the water supply and the good condition of the sanitation networks, points out the area manager of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Fabrizio Carboni, who warns of the "frighteningly high" risk. of "devastating public health consequences" arising as a side effect of earthquakes.

Mental health is also a concern, which is less visible but just as harmful in the medium and long term. The director of World Vision's response in Syria, Johan Mooij, stresses that, apart from the "visible destruction" of buildings and infrastructure, there is "mental and emotional damage" that is particularly heavy on children, who "are not oblivious to persistent, pervasive, and catastrophic trauma.

"The headlines are disappearing, the cameras have gone while the piles of rubble have not moved, no bodies have been found and the boys and girls, in many cases, have not been able to bury their parents and loved ones." the Mint.

A 38-year-old Syrian remembers the day when the earth shook "very hard". "We were looking for bodies under the rubble from dawn until the next night. The sidewalk in front of the hospital was littered with bodies covered in black bags. Some families died and had no one to bury them," he explains.

Before his family, he tries to contain his emotions, but he himself assumes in statements to World Vision that his psychological state "is not good at all." Not surprisingly, they lack the most basic: "I am not able to provide them with anything."

What all the organizations agree on is that "the world cannot stand by and see how Syrians go hungry, cold and live as displaced persons after twelve years of crisis", as Hansen, from the NRC, points out. As of March 1, the humanitarian plan promoted by the UN had not received even half of the 400 million dollars claimed, pending possible progress at the donor conference on March 16.

Political considerations have also played a key role in the humanitarian response in Ukraine, to the extent that international sanctions against the Al Assad regime have hampered any direct contact and there were hardly any established steps to access the northwestern area, the most affected.

The ICRC urges all parties to put the needs of the population before all other considerations. World Vision calls for all access channels to northwest Syria to be kept open, so that organizations can continue to serve the local population.