عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Aid Group Issues Urgent Appeal for Quake-Hit Syria

Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
TT
TT

Aid Group Issues Urgent Appeal for Quake-Hit Syria

Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)

The group Doctors Without Borders called Sunday for the "urgent scaling up" of earthquake aid to northwest Syria as it delivered a convoy laden with emergency assistance.

Aid has been slow to reach Syria's rebel-held areas since the February 6 quake killed a combined total of more than 43,000 people across Türkiye and Syria.

"An urgent increase in the volume of supplies is needed to match the scale of the humanitarian crisis," said the French aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

It charged that supplies "currently fail to even match pre-earthquake volumes".

"Aid is trickling in in negligible amounts for the moment," said Hakim Khaldi, MSF's head of mission in Syria. "We emptied our emergency stocks in three days."

"According to UN data, five days after the earthquake, only 10 trucks had entered" opposition-held areas of Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Türkiye, MSF said.

It added that "in the 10 days following the earthquake, the number of trucks that crossed the border into northwest Syria was lower than the average weekly number for 2022".

A convoy of 14 trucks laden with 1,269 tents and winter kits sent by MSF had arrived in Syria through the Al-Hammam crossing in the Afrin area on Sunday.

"The delivery was arranged outside of the United Nations cross-border humanitarian mechanism," the group said.

Activists and emergency teams in Syria's northwest have decried a slow UN response to the quake in opposition-held areas, contrasting it with the planeloads of aid that have been delivered to government-controlled airports.

Before the quake struck, almost all of the crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in opposition-controlled areas was being delivered through just one crossing, Bab al-Hawa.

The UN announced on Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to open two more border crossings from Türkiye to northwest Syria to allow in aid.

Since the quake, the UN has sent more than 170 aid trucks to northwest Syria.

The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the Damascus regime’s brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global extremists.

Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

ICRC to Expand Syria Humanitarian Efforts beyond $100 Mln Program

A logo of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland March 29, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
A logo of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland March 29, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
TT
TT

ICRC to Expand Syria Humanitarian Efforts beyond $100 Mln Program

A logo of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland March 29, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
A logo of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland March 29, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) plans to expand its work in Syria significantly beyond an initial $100 million program, the organization's president said on Monday, citing pressing needs in the health, water and power sectors.
Syria requires $4.07 billion in aid this year, but only 33.1% has been funded, leaving a $2.73 billion gap, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The ICRC's expected expansion follows new access to all regions of the country after the toppling of president Bashar al-Assad last month.
"Our program originally for this year for Syria was $100 million, but we are likely to expand that significantly," ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters on the sidelines of a visit to the country.
She said individual donor countries had already come forward with an increase in funding for Syria.
ICRC was one of the few international organizations still operating in Syria under Assad's rule, working on infrastructure projects including water and electricity systems.
"We need to expand that work, we have a lot to do in the health sector," she added.
The organization is engaged in rehabilitation work to sustain water provision at 40% to 50% of what it was before the war, but protection of water facilities remains important as some are close to places where fighting is still under way.
"There are facilities next to the Euphrates Lake that are specific to the protection requirement at the moment," she said.
Initial assessments to begin immediate rehabilitation of Syria’s electricity systems are partly complete, but urgent financial investments and adjustments to sanctions are now required, she added.
"Certain spare parts need to be allowed to come in because that is also hampering the rehabilitation work at the moment. So there's a political dimension to it," she said.
Earlier, people briefed on the matter told Reuters that the US is set to announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while maintaining its strict sanctions regime.
On Sunday, Syria's new rulers said US sanctions were an obstacle to the country's rapid recovery and urged Washington to lift them, during a visit by Syrian officials to Qatar.