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.



Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Macron Speeds up Rafale Warplane Orders as France Invests in Nuclear Deterrence

France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of a Dassault Rafale (R) and A Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft during his visit of the French Air and Space Force (Armee de l'air et de l'espace) Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur Airbase in Saint-Sauveur, north-eastern France on March 18, 2025. (AFP)

President Emmanuel Macron said France would order additional Rafale warplanes in the coming years and invest nearly 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) into one of its air bases to equip its squadrons with the latest nuclear missile technology.

Jolted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's more confrontational stance towards traditional Western allies, European countries are hiking defense spending and seeking to reduce dependence on the United States.

Macron, who has initiated a doubling of the French defense budget over the course of his two mandates, has recently set an even higher target, saying the country should increase defense spending to 3-3.5% of economic output from the current 2%.

He has also offered to extend the protection of France's nuclear weapons, the so-called nuclear umbrella, to other European countries.

"We haven't waited for 2022 or the turning point we're seeing right now to discover that the world we live in is ever more dangerous, ever more uncertain, and that it implies to innovate, to bulk up and to become more autonomous," he said.

"I will announce in the coming weeks new investments to go further than what was done over the past seven years," he told soldiers at one of the country's historical air bases in Luxeuil, eastern France.

Macron said he had decided to turn the base, famed in military circles as the home of American volunteer pilots during World War One, into one of its most advanced bases in its nuclear deterrence program.

The base will host the latest Rafale S5 fighter jets, which will carry France's next-generation ASN4G hypersonic nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are intended to be operational from 2035 onwards, French officials said.

The French air force will also receive additional Dassault-made Rafale warplanes, in part to replace the Mirage jets France has transferred to Ukraine, Macron said.

"We are going to increase and accelerate our orders for Rafales," he said.

French officials said the 1.5 billion euros were part of the already approved multi-year military spending plan. It remained unclear how France would finance a massive hike in military spending at a time it is trying to reduce its budget deficit.

Macron's speech comes on the day the German parliament approved a massive increase in military spending.