War, poverty and earthquake: disasters pile up in northwestern Syria | Earthquake Turkey and Syria

Photos and video from the area give an idea of ​​the hardship after another night of freezing cold and rain came over. The medical situation here is appalling, according to the White Helmets, the Syrian civil defense organization that works in areas not under the control of the Damascus regime. Tens of thousands of buildings that were already cracked by the war have been further damaged. There are forecasts of flooding in the area.

The death toll in this area alone could be well over a thousand with hundreds more missing under the rubble. Refugee detention centers (holding an unclear number of people inside) have collapsed, roads to them have been wiped out, and international aid is finding it particularly difficult to get there as fighting and bombing continued until recently by both sides – rebels and government forces receiving support from have Russia.

In a country already damaged beyond words by ten years of war, the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo had become a last refuge for the poorest and the most vulnerable. Aleppo is partly back in the hands of the Syrian government, thanks in part to Russian artillery, including the kind of shelling of towns and villages that Ukraine can now also talk about.

In Idlib, the mainly Islamic group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is in charge, an offshoot of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Of the nearly 5 million people living here, two-thirds are internally displaced and 1.8 million of them live in refugee camps, according to the United Nations. A spokesperson reported on Monday that aid is also being sent to this area, the only question is how long it will take for that aid to arrive.

Because besides the fact that it is difficult to negotiate with the rebels, a veto from Russia is threatening again and again, which, despite the war in Ukraine, is still very present at the service of President Assad, who is wanted for war crimes. According to Moscow, any aid to Idlib must first pass through Damascus. Experiences with that route in the past have been bad because the Syrian authorities do nothing to delay or block humanitarian aid to the rebels.

“The earthquake is another devastating shock to so many vulnerable people who are mainly trying to survive after years of war,” said Tanya Evans of the International Rescue Committee, which was once co-founded by Albert Einstein. Emergency workers who were already there – often volunteers – were already exhausted before the earth started to move. They cared for millions of displaced people who had been displaced by the civil war and were now crammed into unsuitable buildings.

The White Helmets are sounding the alarm because – according to a spokesperson – ‘we are unable to respond’. The magnitude of the disaster far exceeds the capabilities of the organization. “Every minute we lose a life. We are now racing with time. We need heavy equipment. We need heavy machinery for rescue missions. We need rescue teams. We need fuel. We’ve used up reserve fuel in the past two months. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word.”

At least 711 people have been killed and more than 1,400 injured in regions of Syria controlled by President Assad’s government, mainly in Latakia, Hama, Aleppo and Tartus, according to state media. Rebel areas would have suffered at least as many casualties.