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Quake-hit Syrians Brace for Subdued Ramadan

File photo: Syrian refugee Ayesha al-Abed, 21, right, prepares food as her Husband Raed Mattar, 24, left, plays with their daughter Rayan, 18 months old, before they break their fast on the first day of fasting month of Ramadan, at an informal refugee camp, in the town of Bhannine in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
File photo: Syrian refugee Ayesha al-Abed, 21, right, prepares food as her Husband Raed Mattar, 24, left, plays with their daughter Rayan, 18 months old, before they break their fast on the first day of fasting month of Ramadan, at an informal refugee camp, in the town of Bhannine in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Quake-hit Syrians Brace for Subdued Ramadan

File photo: Syrian refugee Ayesha al-Abed, 21, right, prepares food as her Husband Raed Mattar, 24, left, plays with their daughter Rayan, 18 months old, before they break their fast on the first day of fasting month of Ramadan, at an informal refugee camp, in the town of Bhannine in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
File photo: Syrian refugee Ayesha al-Abed, 21, right, prepares food as her Husband Raed Mattar, 24, left, plays with their daughter Rayan, 18 months old, before they break their fast on the first day of fasting month of Ramadan, at an informal refugee camp, in the town of Bhannine in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Umm Esmat, a mother living in war-torn Syria, is preparing for the onset of Ramadan this year with a heavy heart, after a deadly earthquake forced her from her home.

Now displaced in the rebel-held countryside of northern Syria, she places on the bare ground of her shelter a few bags of bulgur, dates, rice and sweets for breaking the fast during the Muslim holy month which begins on Thursday, AFP said.

"Ramadan this year will not be like the year before, or the year before that," she said with a sigh, sitting in a desolate tent near her house, furnished only with mattresses and a heater.

The walls of her home either collapsed or cracked in the powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck on February 6, killing nearly 6,000 people in Syria and tens of thousands more in neighboring Türkiye.

The disaster heaped more misery on the people of northwestern Syria who have been battered by 12 years of war.

The conflict, which erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests, cost the lives of more than 500,000 people and uprooted around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.

At a nearby camp in the heavily quake-damaged town of Jindayris, Hilal Safarjali sells chocolate bars, biscuits and sweets from a makeshift stall to get by after he lost his home.

"I cannot say happy Ramadan. We are not OK after the earthquake," said the man in his 50s, displaced from Damascus.

The United Nations warned last week that Syria faced "unprecedented levels of poverty and food insecurity".

Yet funding gaps could force the World Food Program to stop providing assistance to nearly four million Syrians by summer unless more donations come in, the UN agency has said.

Safarjali's neighbor Umm Jumaa said she was still mourning her husband who was killed in the tremor.

"This Ramadan without my husband will be very difficult," she said with tears in her eyes.

"We lost him, and he was the head of the household."

The daytime fasting month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Observant Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk. They traditionally gather with family and friends to break their fast in the evening.

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Arab World

MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
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MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)

Medical aid agency MSF said on Friday it has been forced to suspend its activities at one of the few remaining hospitals in southern Khartoum due to repeated attacks, cutting off yet another lifeline for those who remain in the Sudanese capital.
War has been raging in Sudan since April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, triggering the world's largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The hospital, which lies in territory controlled by the RSF, helped treat the victims of frequent airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces, as well as hundreds of malnourished women and children in an area where two neighborhoods have been judged at risk of famine, reported Reuters.
"In the 20 months MSF teams have worked alongside hospital staff and volunteers, Bashair Hospital has experienced repeated incidents of armed fighters entering the hospital with weapons and threatening medical staff, often demanding fighters be treated before other patients," MSF said in a statement.
"Despite extensive engagements with all stakeholders, these attacks have continued in recent months. MSF has now taken the very difficult decision to suspend all medical activities in the hospital."
The fighting in Sudan has cut off up to 80% of hospitals in conflict areas, where millions who cannot afford to escape the violence remain. Civilians face frequent air and artillery fire and hunger as supplies are blocked by both warring parties and prices skyrocket.
Medical facilities, including MSF-supported ones that have suspended operations, have frequently come under attack by RSF soldiers demanding treatment or looting supplies. Bashair Hospital has served more than 25,000 people, MSF said, including 9,000 hurt by blasts, gunshot wounds, and other violence.
"Sometimes dozens of people arrived at the hospital at the same time after shelling or airstrikes on residential areas and markets," MSF said in the statement, citing an incident on Sunday where an airstrike one kilometer away drove 50 people to the emergency room, 12 of them already dead.