ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Three months after the earthquake, hundreds of tons of relief assistance given to earthquake-affected people still have not improved their situation in Syrian government-held areas.
Muhammad al-Hassan, 40, a pseudonym for an engineer in one of the relief teams, told North Press that the situation of the quake-affected people is dire, and that they have suffered difficult and harsh conditions for over 100 days without sufficient aid.
Within the earthquake emergency plan, the Syrian Tourism Minister demanded owners of tourist facilities in the private sector grant governors and the heads of city councils permission to use them to alleviate the suffering of affected people.
Al-Hassan said about 3.2 million IDPs live in devastated cities and need urgent and sustainable assistance. They suffer from extremely hard living conditions amid deteriorating economy in Syria.
Local reports show that the number of workers whom the earthquake left jobless reached about 200,000. The government has not released any official number.
The number of affected people in government-held areas exceeded 6.5 million, and over 300,000 people have not returned to their houses after the earthquake, according to statistics conducted by al-Hassan’s group.
Al-Hassan added that the government’s response during the earthquake was limited to opening schools and worship places to receive survivors and harbor people afraid of returning to their houses for fear of collapses.
He noted that the local community provided the utmost help in bringing food and heating supplies for survivors. Charity associations have been inactive for three years, and the government has no alternative plans to respond to such disasters.
As summer approaches, he said, there is an increased risk of contracting diseases, leaving thousands of families in camps and shelters subject to contract cholera and leishmaniasis.
Mustafa Zalat, 45, from the Bustan al-Basha neighborhood in Aleppo, told North Press that he left his house after the first earthquake that hit Aleppo on February 6. He did not head to any shelters and preferred to stay with his parents in the Sheikh Fares neighborhood.
Aleppo, which was announced as a devastated area, still has 82 shelters, eight of which are schools that continue to contain affected people until the end of August 2023.
Zalat added that he went to the Mukhtar and the neighborhood’s committees to receive assistance after his house was damaged and became at risk of collapse. The Mukhtar refused to register his name because he and his family do not live in a group shelter.
He noted that he was asked to pay money “in return for registering his name” to receive aid.
Zalat, who is yet to receive aid, lost his job at a car wash following the collapse of the building he had worked in. He wonders, “We, the affected people, did not receive any aid. So what did the government do with the aid? Where is the aid?”
On the other hand, Abu Omar, a resident in the Karm al-Afandi neighborhood, complains about the government’s inaction in removing the rubble of a collapsed building, which has blocked the road to his neighborhood.
He told North Press that the construction vehicles that came to the neighborhood broke the water network and sewage system. “Even though we filed complaints several times, they were not fixed.”
The vehicles did not remove the rubble but piled them up in the middle of the street and caused other problems, Abu Omar noted.
The government is still investigating the number of victims and damage caused by the earthquake. On February 10, it declared Aleppo and other areas as disaster zones so they could transfer the government’s budget to assist these cities, but the affected people have not received any assistance to help them recover even after 100 days.
In the first hours after the earthquake, the Syrian Ministry of Transport permitted aid planes to land based upon request and coordination with officials from the Civil Aviation Authority.
Ahmad al-Saeed, a pseudonym for an official of the Civil Aviation, told North Press that 258 planes landed in Syrian airports carrying 70,740 tons of aid delivered to government-affiliated Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
The UAE sent 181 planes carrying 50,430 tons of aid, putting it in the lead, whereas 77 airplanes were sent from Iraq, India, Jordan, China, Oman, Libya, Russia, Algeria, Italy, Sudan, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Japan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Indonesia, the European Union, and UNICEF, al-Saeed added.
Media sources confirmed that several ships reached the Syrian coast from countries such as Egypt, Russia, UAE, and others. Additionally, aid was sent through land routes from Jordan and areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in east Syria.
The Syrian government received financial aid, but it was a mere $50 million from UAE, according to the statement of the Syrian Foreign Minister.