A Month after Quake, Survivors Need Shelter, Sanitation

Members of a family keep warm next to a fire as they follow a rescue team searching for their relatives among destroyed building in Antakya, southern Türkiye, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (AP)
Members of a family keep warm next to a fire as they follow a rescue team searching for their relatives among destroyed building in Antakya, southern Türkiye, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (AP)
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A Month after Quake, Survivors Need Shelter, Sanitation

Members of a family keep warm next to a fire as they follow a rescue team searching for their relatives among destroyed building in Antakya, southern Türkiye, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (AP)
Members of a family keep warm next to a fire as they follow a rescue team searching for their relatives among destroyed building in Antakya, southern Türkiye, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (AP)

One month after a powerful quake devastated parts of Türkiye and Syria, hundreds of thousands of people still need adequate shelter and sanitation, and an appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10% funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis, a United Nations official said Monday.

The Feb. 6 earthquake and strong aftershocks have killed close to 47,000 people in Türkiye, destroyed or damaged around 214,000 buildings and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless — making it the worst disaster in Türkiye’s modern history. The UN estimates that the earthquake killed around 6,000 people in Syria, mainly in the rebel-held northwest.

About 2 million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses. Others are living in dormitories and guesthouses, the government said.

“Given the number of people that have been relocated, given the number of people that have been injured and given the level of the devastation, we do have extensive humanitarian needs now,” Alvaro Rodriguez, the UN Resident Coordinator in Türkiye, told The Associated Press.

“We have some provinces where up to 25% of the population — we’re talking sometimes half a million people — have relocated. So the challenge we have is how do we provide food, shelter, water for these communities?” he said.

The UN representative said tents are still needed even though they are not “the optimal solution” for sheltering people. He reported some cases of scabies outbreaks because of poor sanitary conditions.

Last month, the UN made a flash appeal for $397.6 million to help Syrian quake victims and $1 billion appeal for victims in Türkiye to cover emergency needs, such as food, protection, education water and shelter, for three months. Rodriguez said the appeal for Türkiye is only about 10 percent funded.

“The reality is that if we do not move beyond the roughly 10% that we have, the UN and its partners will not be able to meet the humanitarian needs,” he said.

Rodriguez added: “Türkiye has been a country that has supported 4 million Syrian refugees over the last few years, and this is an opportunity for the international community to provide the support that Türkiye deserves.”

The World Bank has estimated that the earthquake has caused an estimated $34.2 billion in direct physical damages - the equivalent of 4% of Türkiye’s 2021 GDP. The World Bank said recovery and reconstruction costs will be much higher and that GDP losses associated to economic disruptions will also add to the cost of the earthquakes.

In Syria, the situation remained dire one month after the deadly earthquake, with aid groups citing fears of a looming public health crisis with families still packed into overcrowded temporary shelters and crucial infrastructure damaged by the quake.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that Aleppo’s water infrastructure — already aging and damaged by the war — had been further damaged by the quake, which “reduced the system’s efficiency and raised the risk that contaminated water could pollute the supply.”

Water contamination is of particular concern in Syria as the country had already been battling cholera outbreaks before the earthquake.

While the earthquake generated an initial outpouring of aid, relief organizations cited fears that the world’s attention will move on quickly, while basic humanitarian needs remain unmet.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, the United Nations appealed for about $397 million to meet the immediate needs in Syria, including medical care for quake survivors and food and shelter for the displaced. To date, just over half of the requested amount has come in.

Meanwhile, political and logistical issues have in some cases blocked aid from reaching those in need.

Amnesty International said Monday that between Feb. 9 and 22, the Syrian government had “blocked at least 100 trucks carrying essential aid such as food, medical supplies and tents from entering Kurdish-majority neighborhoods in Aleppo city” while Turkish-backed opposition groups in northwest Syria blocked at least 30 aid trucks sent by rival Kurdish groups from entering Turkish-controlled Afrin in the same period.

“Even in this moment of desperation, the Syrian government and armed opposition groups have pandered to political considerations and taken advantage of people’s misery to advance their own agendas,” Aya Majzoub, the rights group’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.



At Least 11 Dead after Security Operations Against Militants in Northwest Pakistan

Pakistani security officials inspect the scene where a train was hijacked by suspected militants, in Sibi, Pakistan, 15 March 2025. EPA/STRINGER
Pakistani security officials inspect the scene where a train was hijacked by suspected militants, in Sibi, Pakistan, 15 March 2025. EPA/STRINGER
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At Least 11 Dead after Security Operations Against Militants in Northwest Pakistan

Pakistani security officials inspect the scene where a train was hijacked by suspected militants, in Sibi, Pakistan, 15 March 2025. EPA/STRINGER
Pakistani security officials inspect the scene where a train was hijacked by suspected militants, in Sibi, Pakistan, 15 March 2025. EPA/STRINGER

Pakistan's security forces raided two militant hideouts in the country’s restive northwest on Saturday, triggering gun battles that left at least two soldiers and nine militants dead, the military said in a statement.
The raids were conducted in the Mohmand and Dera Ismail Khan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported.
According to local police officials, the insurgents were Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
The outlawed TTP is a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of a withdrawal from the country after 20 years of war.
Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuaries and have even been living openly in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, which also emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.
In a separate incident on Saturday, insurgents ambushed security forces in the northwestern Kurram district of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, local police said. However, authorities have yet to confirm any troop casualties.
Pakistan's military is currently engaged in an ongoing operation in Kurram, an area that has witnessed years of sectarian violence. Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between heavily armed factions, exacerbating tensions in the region.
Since November, Kurram has remained isolated after authorities blocked key roads following sectarian violence. The closure has led to severe shortages of medicine and food, further deepening the humanitarian crisis.
Also on Saturday, a bomb exploded outside a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing cleric Mufti Shakir, local police said. It was unclear who was behind the attack and an investigation is continuing.