Earthquake in Syria: humanitarian aid with obstacles

It was well before dawn when the first violent tremor woke Khawla and her two brothers in Idlib city. “We were so scared, we didn’t know what was going to happen at first,” she says on the phone. “There was no option to leave the house. Both my brothers are ill, the weather is freezing cold. Where should we have gone?” she asks. So they would have surrendered to fate together with the neighbors. The house shook, but it’s still standing. “Many houses are now even more in danger of collapsing. But there are no emergency shelters here, no safe places. There are people who have been out of fear on the street or sitting in their cars since last night,” she says – at temperatures around freezing point.

Khawla, 47, who declined to give her real name, is from Idlib, the capital of the last province in north-west Syria near the Turkish border held by Syrian rebels and Islamists. Images of Syrians being pulled helplessly from under rubble have become a common sight over the past 12 years of war in Syria. But this time air raids were not responsible, but a natural phenomenon. Hundreds of people have already died in Monday’s earthquakes in northern Syria, both in government-controlled areas and in areas controlled by rebels and Islamists – and the number is likely to rise.

Assad regime: misuse of aid supplies

In the meantime, aid for Syria has started. However, there are several difficulties, says Anita Starosta, Syria consultant at the aid organization Medico International. One is to deliver aid to cities like Aleppo, areas controlled by the Assad regime. President Bashar al-Assad has already promised help and called on the UN to support this help. “But that means that in these areas in particular, there will be no avoiding coordinating aid via Assad, if it is to come from the international side.”

But that was problematic, Starosta continued. “Because we know from the past that all aid money that goes through the regime and Damascus also goes to finance the regime structure – that is, to aid organizations that are linked to the Assad family.”

This experience was mainly made during the corona pandemic, says political scientist André Bank from the Hamburg GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies. The regime has tried to control the vaccine that has arrived in the country, as well as other medical supplies, and then distribute them to selected groups.

“This shows how selective and politically oriented the regime is. Basically, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that Western countries cannot cooperate with the regime.” According to Bank, there are already indications that Damascus is trying to exploit the earthquake for its own purposes. “The Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid organization, which is very close to the regime, has demanded that the sanctions imposed on the regime be lifted so that help can be better provided. This shows how much the political elite in Damascus perceives the catastrophe primarily strategically. “

The German-Syrian activist Safouh Labanieh is correspondingly skeptical. Experience has shown that the regime has no serious will to help the citizens. “I think even now it is trying to exploit the tragedy to monopolize aid and regain international legitimacy.”

Syrian-Turkish border: open crossings?

Aid for the province of Idlib, which is not controlled by Assad, is also difficult. Around 4.8 million people live there, and until now it has been difficult to take care of them. All humanitarian aid for them passes through the Turkish-Syrian border crossing at Bab al-Hawa – the only one guaranteed by a UN resolution.

In order to speed up the delivery of aid, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has now called for all border crossings between Turkey and Syria to be opened in order to enable faster aid in Syria as well. “That’s why opening the border crossings is so important,” says Baerbock.

The proposal is practicable, says André Bank. “There are more than 20 crossings on this extremely long border. On the Syrian side, they are primarily controlled by the opposition Syrian National Army. These are moderate rebels who also have close ties to Turkey. This also avoids cooperation with Assad regime, Russia or Iran.” And something else is important: These transitions are not controlled by jihadist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a successor organization to al-Qaeda. “So the West is bypassing a lot of groups it doesn’t want to work with.”

Turkey’s role

The opening of further border crossings would basically make the help easier, says Anita Starosta from Medico International. So far, the supply of the Syrian internally displaced persons living there has been more than precarious. “The aid that was provided there even before the earthquake was not enough and often does not arrive. It is now winter and cold. That is why there are more people in the refugee camps there, but also in the destroyed areas in Idlib ever dependent on international aid.”

In any case, says Starosta, there is only one thing that matters most: “Will Turkey allow a humanitarian corridor to bring people and refugees to safety, or will it stick to its policy and keep the borders closed. Unfortunately, that’s more likely to happen. “

Khawla and her brothers have no choice but to stay put in Idlib. The 47-year-old has been stuck in the battered city for years. “Sometimes it’s rocket attacks, sometimes the bad economic situation and now a natural disaster,” she says in a broken voice. “We don’t have any time at all to take a deep breath, to recover. How is a person supposed to endure all this?”

Collaboration: Khaled Salameh