Lost in Syria

The massive earthquake that struck the Turkish-Syrian border region in the early hours of 6 February has, according to the latest figures, claimed 44,000 lives. Tens of thousands were injured and thousands are missing. While people in the earthquake zone are struggling to survive, strong aftershocks continue to shake the region. It was said on Friday that there is an aftershock in the region about every four minutes. As of 17 February, there have been more than 4700 aftershocks, according to the UN agency for emergency relief (OCHA).

In both Turkey and Syria, survivors said they thought the end of the world had come as the earth shook beneath them, destroying their homes, neighbourhoods, families, daily lives, life’s work and all their plans. This earthquake has been and still is an immeasurably terrible experience and a heavy burden for people on all sides of the frontiers. For war-torn Syria, internationally blocked by the West politically, economically and in the media, the burden is nevertheless even greater. War and economic war, flight and displacement, death and destruction - since 2011, Syria has lost everything it had ever built up through its own efforts. When it comes to the internationally promised aid for the people in the devastated areas, major differences become apparent. The USA, the EU and also the German government are distributing their aid selectively.

Turkey

Turkey was promised help from 70 countries, millions were promised or have already been transferred. Planes with first aid supplies landed at Turkish airports not damaged by the earthquake. According to official information from Ankara, 36 countries are already on the spot with their aid, and more than 3300 rescue workers are in action. The EU alone sent more than 1,000 aid workers to the Turkish earthquake zone and initiated the Emergency Relief Mechanism, which makes stringent demands on EU member states. 21 member states sent rescue teams and heavy equipment to search for trapped people. Tents and beds have been delivered. Sweden and Romania sent emergency shelters as part of the EU Commission’s aid (which has an additional fund at its command). NATO has mobilised more than 1400 soldiers to support the rescue forces - also with heavy equipment. More than three times as many take-offs and landings were carried out over the following days via the Incirlik military base – about 10 km from Adana, which was badly devastated in the earthquake – to ensure aid deliveries by plane.
  In Berlin, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: “We remain closely and steadfastly at Turkey’s side.” She promised that emergency generators, tents and blankets would be sent, and the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) would send rescue and recovery teams. Faeser said she had offered Turkey that THW would “provide camps with emergency shelters and water treatment facilities”. The support would be “closely coordinated with Turkey”. International media sent reporters to the scene to report on the misery around the clock. Donations were solicited through all channels.¹

Syria

Like Ankara, the foreign ministry in Damascus turned to “the United Nations member states” for help as early as on 6 February. Requests for help also went to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other humanitarian organisations to help Syria cope with the terrible effects of the earthquake. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad affirmed that the government would do everything possible to provide the international organisations with all the support they needed to assist the Syrians with humanitarian aid.
  However, a spokesperson for the EU Commission explained the following day that no request for assistance had been received from Damascus. The Civil Protection Mechanism had therefore been triggered only for Turkey.²
  The Syrian government then approached the EU directly and submitted a request for civil protection assistance. A “long list of common civil protection goods” had been received, said EU Commissioner Janez Lenarcic, who heads the crisis management department in Brussels. He said there was a demand for medicines, food and medical equipment. He encouraged EU countries to respond to the request from Syria, the Commissioner said. Holland agreed to transfer 10 million euros, and ten EU states are now participating in aid deliveries. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism was triggered, with the Commission releasing 3.5 million Euro in emergency aid.³
  However, little of this aid arrives directly in Syria, it is rather earmarked for the “north-west” of the country. The Foreign Office in Berlin said that the “already existing comprehensive humanitarian aid in north-west Syria by humanitarian NGOs and UN organisations” would be continued. The “locally existing and established partner network” would “also help in the current situation to react quickly and directly and to support the suffering people. Germany will prepare extensive further assistance on the basis of the UN emergency plan to be published in the next few days.” A further 1 million euros has been pledged to the Malteser International organisation.
  The German government, which repeatedly boasts that Germany is the second largest donor to the suffering Syrian population, is singling out those living in north-west Syria for help. The Syrian victims – more than 300,000 people have been made homeless in Aleppo alone – are being divided. Their destitution is being used to intensify political pressure on the Syrian government. The Syrian government is accused of not helping the people affected by the earthquake. Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told journalists that in Syria, “where people cannot hope for help under the Assad regime”, humanitarian partners will be supported and efforts to “push for humanitarian access” will be continued.⁴
  Baerbock had already demanded on 6 February, immediately after the catastrophic dimensions of the earthquake had become known, that Syria should open its borders to Turkey to allow aid deliveries. In the Bundestag, Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) demanded free access for aid organisations to the affected regions in Syria. And Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany was delivering aid supplies to Turkey that could be brought to the Syrian earthquake zone (from Turkey) with the help of the United Nations. “Now we see once again how vital this cross-border access is, which we have been advocating [in the UN Security Council, kl] for years.”
  Scholz was speaking about Bab al-Hawa, a border crossing between Turkey and the Syrian province of Idlib, which is run by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), successor to the al-Nusra Front, which emerged from al-Qaida in Iraq. Under UN Security Council Resolution 2672, which was renewed for six months in January 2023, aid can be brought to Idlib from Turkey under UN supervision. Syria rejects the move because it takes away the country’s sovereign control over the border crossing. Russia, China and other states support Syria and demand that the border crossing be closed and that aid be distributed from Syria to all parts of the country. The armed government opponents grouped around HTS in Idlib, who are supported by Turkey and numerous foreign states, reject this.
  UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric pointed out in New York that the Bab al-Hawa border crossing and the road through it had been damaged by the severe earthquake. Politics should be “left aside”, the spokesperson warned. What was needed was a solution on how to get aid to the people who had lost everything and had to hold out in the freezing cold.
  If so wanted, aid could have been brought immediately via the airports of Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia and transported within the country to all affected areas. However, the US, EU and partners preferred to spend days pressing the Syrian government to open more border crossings from Turkey. The US and France wanted to get a new UN Security Council resolution for this. The media started a campaign against the Syrian government, saying it did not want to help the earthquake victims.
  What remained unmentioned was that Syria controls only one border crossing into Turkey, in the far west of the country near Kassab. All other border crossings are controlled by Turkey or – in the north-east of the country – by US troops. Both countries have deployed troops along the Syrian-Turkish border, supporting armed government opponents who, from the northwest to the northeast, prevent the Syrian government from controlling the Syrian-Turkish border as well as resources in the area. In fact, US Secretary of State Blinken specifically thanked the Turkish government for opening the border into north-western Syria.⁵
  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad eventually gave the green light for two more border crossings to be used by the UN for aid deliveries – Bab al-Salam and Al Rae’e. The aid deliveries via these two border crossings and via Bab al-Hawa only reach the areas occupied by armed government opponents and Turkey (Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab).
  Within Syria, all affected areas should receive aid, it was said in Damascus. The aid transports were to be carried out by the UN, the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
  The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, said that Syria and Turkey had cooperated well at government level to make aid deliveries possible. However, there were problems with the “authorities in the northwest”. These block the passage of aid transports coming from Syria, Beasley said. He does not know why they are blocking. “Why are they playing such games now? I will call them by name and not be silent about it. “⁶

In the hour of need

While Germany, the EU and the US did not hear the call for help from Damascus “to the states of the United Nations” on 6 February, other countries reacted immediately. On 7 February, a plane from Iran landed in Damascus with 45 tonnes of relief supplies. Tehran offered both Turkey and Syria the help of the Iranian Red Crescent and of Iranian rescue teams. On 8 February, planes from India, Iraq and Algeria landed at Damascus and Latakia airports with aid workers, search teams and relief supplies. Relief supplies also arrived by plane from Egypt and Jordan. Oman announced an airlift, and Armenia also pledged help. The United Arab Emirates sent numerous aircraft and a rescue team and set up a field hospital. Russia sent rescue teams to help recover survivors and dead in Aleppo.
  Lebanon was among the first countries to send rescue workers from the Lebanese Civil Defence, Red Cross Society and private aid volunteers, as well as military technicians and engineers to Syria on 6 February. On 8 February, a delegation from the acting interim government, led by Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, followed. In addition, the country also opened its airspace and ports for aid shipments to Syria, explicitly overriding the unilateral punitive economic measures imposed on Syria by the EU and the US. This has allowed emergency aid to the country to be accelerated. On 7 February, it was announced in Beirut, that all companies transporting supplies and equipment for Syria were exempt from port charges. The same would apply to air cargo arriving in Beirut via Rafik Hariri International Airport. Aid flights from European countries – Italy and Cyprus – could not land in Damascus due to EU sanctions against Syria. They landed in Beirut – which had suspended sanctions – and from there flew on to Damascus. “This is the least we can do for our brother country in its hour of need,” said Ali Hamieh, Lebanon’s acting transport minister.⁷

In the name of humanity

The most direct way to help the people of Syria would be through the airports in Damascus, Latakia and Aleppo. This would require the EU and the US to lift or suspend their unilateral punitive economic measures against Syria. After a twelve-day stay in the region and dozens of talks in November 2022, Alena Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the human rights of the population of an affected country, specifically Syria, had called for the immediate lifting of the sanctions. Their impact on the population amounted to a “war crime”.⁸
  In response to the author’s question as to whether the German Federal Government was prepared, within the EU framework or unilaterally, to comply with the UN Special Rapporteur’s request in view of the earthquake, the Foreign Office referred to a “supplementary submission to the government press conference on 11 November 2022”:
  “We have taken note of Ms Douhan’s statements. We do not know how – i. e., under which impressions and with the help of which methodology – the Special Rapporteur reached her conclusions. What is clear to us is that the Assad regime bears responsibility for the catastrophic situation in Syria. The regime continues to wage a brutal war against its own population, it consistently commits human rights violations and blocks any political solution to the conflict. We also know that the regime and its supporters – such as Russia – cynically keep blaming the EU sanctions for the suffering in the country. The truth is that the EU sanctions are specifically aimed at those who are guilty of serious crimes in Syria. And at the same time, they provide for very clear and far-reaching humanitarian exemptions.”
  Reality tells another story. There is a lack of everything that Syria had originally produced itself. On the other hand, the sanctions and trade restrictions encourage smuggling and corruption at and across all borders to Turkey, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon. There is a shortage of gas and oil because US troops occupy the Syrian national oil fields in the north-east of the country and deny Syria access. A border crossing to Jordan and Iraq is blocked by US troops with its illegal military base Al-Tanf (trijunction Syria-Iraq-Jordan), so that aid transports from Iraq or Iran cannot reach Syria by land. The Syrian-Iraqi border crossing at Al-Bukamal is repeatedly being attacked by Israel – which does not comment on this. Recently, a convoy from Iran carrying medicine and food was bombed to pieces.⁹
  Individual, local and long-distance transport in the country has almost come to a standstill because drivers and buses cannot find enough fuel or cannot pay the high prices on the black market. Inflation is high, prices are rising, people are looking for food in the rubbish. Christian and Muslim aid organisations and foundations give people something to eat at their gates. A falafel sandwich, which before the war was a popular snack everyone could afford for 25 Syrian pounds (about 50 US cents at the time), now costs 10,000 liras (about 1.50 US dollars), and hardly anyone can afford this snack anymore. The consequences of the sanctions can be read in detail in the Douhan report.¹⁰ The fact that the Western, rich states are not prepared to renounce their unilateral punitive economic measures and the ongoing demonisation of the Syrian government in the face of the misery and concerns of the people and local authorities in Syria is commented on in the country with bitterness.
  “We don’t want their money, we don’t want charity,” says a family man who does not want to give his name. “We just want them to lift the blockade on our country; then we can help ourselves.” The Americans should leave Syria, then Syria would be able to use its own oil resources again, he continues. “They accuse us of not wanting to help and of enriching ourselves with relief supplies. But they are the ones occupying our land and getting rich through our need, through our resources, the oil, the wheat, the cotton.”
  For so many years, he said, people had endured the war and tried to protect their land. “We have clung to the earth of Syria so as not to lose our homeland.” Now, he said, the earth itself had turned against the very people who had tried so hard to protect it. “How are we to understand this,” the man asks, perplexed. “After the war, after the economic blockade, after the attacks on Syria from abroad - now our earth is killing us. Why?”
  It was “like the Last Judgement”, says Fadi I. from Aleppo, who sends photos: People trying to form a ladder to retrieve a dead child hanging between fallen chunks of stone. “In the name of humanity – end sanctions against Syria,” it says underneath. Another photo shows the bodies of a man and a child stuck between concrete slabs – they cannot be recovered. Another photo shows two people. The man has his arm protectively over the head of someone who is nestled against him and has an arm around the man’s face. It is not possible to tell if the person is his wife or child. Both are dead, buried by rubble and debris.
  “It was really terrible, very terrible,” says Anas B., a student of architecture in Aleppo, in an unsteady voice. He says his family is fine, “thank God”. Anas lives in New Aleppo, where the houses are not built as high and sturdy. Less was destroyed there during the war than in the east and centre of the city, where there was the most loss of life due to the earthquake. Because of the many aftershocks, his family slept in their car for two nights, Anas says. Now they are busy helping the survivors, he says. “We are collecting blankets, warm clothes, preparing food – I hope we can help. But it’s so much, so terrible.” Anas is in the final exams of his studies, but now he does not know where they might study. The Aleppo city council has declared schools as emergency shelters, and the universities are closed. “We are at a loss, we don’t know how to continue our studies,” Anas says, and then falls silent.  •

¹ https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/212095/07-02-2023/erdbeben-faeser-sagt-tuerkei-hilfe-durch-thw-und-bundespolizei-zu
² https://lostineu.eu/syrien-bekommt-noch-keine-eu-hilfe/
³ https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/russia/earthquakes-turkey-and-syria-eu-emergency-assistance_en
⁴ https://www.handelsblatt.com/video/politik/erdbebenhilfe-baerbock-zum-erdbeben-unsere-gedanken-sind-bei-den-angehoerigen/28968048.html
⁵ https://www.state.gov/assistant-secretary-for-european-and-eurasian-affairs-karen-donfried-on-secretary-blinkens-upcoming-travel-to-germany-turkiye-and-greece/
⁶ https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/02/18/wfp-boss-criticises-northwestern-syrian-authorities-for-slowing-quake-aid/
⁷ https://tass.com/world/1573073
⁸ https://www.ohchr.org/en/node/104160
⁹ https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-attack-on-al-bukamal-targeted-food-medicine-convoy-f
¹⁰ https://www.ohchr.org/en/node/104160

* Independent journalist Karin Leukefeld has been reporting from the Extended Middle East for daily and weekly journals as well as German state sponsored radio programmes since the year 2000. Since the beginning of the war in 2011 she moves back and forth between Damascus, Beirut, other places in the Arab world and her hometown Bonn. She has published several books, such as “Syrien zwischen Schatten und Licht – Geschichte und Geschichten von 1916–2016. Menschen erzählen von ihrem zerrissenen Land” (Syria Between Light and Shadow – History and Stories 1916–2016. People Narrate about their War-torn Country). 2016, Rotpunkt edition Zurich); “Flächenbrand Syrien, Irak, die Arabische Welt und der Islamische Staat” (Surface Fire Syria, Iraq, the Arab World and the Islamic State). 2015, 3^rd edition 2017, PapyRossa edition, Cologne). Her new book will be released soon: “Im Auge des Orkans: Syrien, der Nahe Osten und die Entstehung einer neuen Weltordnung” (In the Eye of the Hurricane: Syria, the Middle East and the Rise of a New World Order).