Abdel Qader Abdelrahman, a volunteer at the Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets), stands at the site of damaged buildings in the aftermath of an earthquake, in the rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria, on Feb. 10.KHALIL ASHAWI/Reuters
In northwest Syria, as rescuers continue to recover bodies from the rubble left by last week’s devastating earthquake, Ismail Alabdullah finds himself unable to get an image out of his mind: the sight of women, dead in the wreckage, with their arms wrapped around the bodies of small children they were unable to protect.
The 36-year-old volunteer with the White Helmets, an organization that has conducted humanitarian search-and-rescue operations throughout years of conflict and disaster in the region, said he is not the only relief worker who has witnessed such things in recent days.
“We are devastated because we were not able to reach everybody,” he said from Idlib, in a phone interview. “Anyone can imagine the scene. Children, babies, mothers. Most of the mothers retrieved, almost all of them were holding babies when the destruction happened.”
Last week’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake and aftershock devastated parts of Syria and southern Turkey. More than 37,000 people have died so far.
Before this most recent catastrophe, residents in northwest Syria had already faced more than a decade of war. The opposition-held region has for years been subjected to intense shelling from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which is supported by Russian forces.
Many people in the region have been displaced multiple times, and have long felt abandoned by the international community. The earthquake has made getting aid to them even more difficult.
On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Mr. al-Assad has agreed to allow UN aid deliveries to northwest Syria through two additional border crossings from Turkey for three months. But the help is coming too late for many.
Mr. Alabdullah said rescue teams are now trying to retrieve the last bodies from under the rubble. The White Helmets pleaded for help from the international community, he added, and more lives would have been saved if it had come in time.
“They didn’t respond. We lost many lives because of them,” he said.
Entire families died following the earthquake. “They were sleeping. It’s tragic.”
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United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths acknowledged the delayed international reaction. “We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria,” he said in a tweet over the weekend. “They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived. My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now.”
Mr. Griffiths later tweeted that trucks with UN relief were entering northwest Syria, saying he was encouraged by the scale-up of convoys from a UN centre at the Turkey border. “We need to open more access points and get more aid out fast,” he added.
Kenn Crossley, the World Food Programme’s country director in Syria, said his organization was feeding thousands within hours and had reached nearly 45,000 people in a matter of days. But he said stocks of supplies need to be replenished.
The main road from Turkey into northwest Syria was damaged by the earthquake, he said, significantly slowing down the flow of aid. He said political agreements are needed to open more routes, which would alleviate pressure on that road.
Mr. Crossley stressed the dire economic situation in the country, where he said even before the earthquake 12 million people did not have enough food. He said the economic challenges are not only related to international sanctions, which have targeted Mr. al-Assad’s regime. But those sanctions have made aid work more difficult.
“There’s so many things that cannot be done here, that can normally be done elsewhere to help people,” Mr. Crossley said. “We need the world to look carefully at who is suffering from the kinds of restrictions that exist.”
Kathryn Achilles, a spokesperson for Save the Children Syria, said her organization is working with its partners in the country to assess needs and scale up its response, which includes providing meals to families, children and rescue workers, and tents to those left homeless.
“The international community as a whole owes it to Syrians now, and Syrian children, to really step up with the resources, not just to meet their immediate needs … but to make sure that Syrian children have education, psychosocial support, and to make sure that there is a life in the future for them,” Ms. Achilles said.
“Because I think that that feels very far away for any of them right now.”
With a report from Reuters