IT HAS been 12 months since the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. For people living in the stricken border region, life is as tough as ever.
The United Nations reports that nearly two million internally displaced people are living in camps. The UN’s Syrian Humanitarian Response Plan for last year was funded for only just above one third of the £4.27 billion estimated as necessary.
At least 58,000 people died after the earthquake flattened buildings, schools, and hospitals on 6 February last year (News, 10 February 2023). In north-western Syria, 4.1 million people, out of a population of 4.5 million, remain in need of help. Communities were already fragile after a decade of conflict, and many had suffered air strikes.
Last month, severe flooding and winter weather compounded their woes. A violent storm destroyed more than 1000 tents and partially damaged 2300 others. Sewage systems were overwhelmed across Idlib and the countryside around Aleppo. The mingling of floodwater with sewage poses a significant risk of disease and a serious environmental threat to wells and crops.
White HelmetsWhite Helmets help a child affected by the storms
The Syrian White Helmets civil-defence organisation says that there is an urgent need to improve living conditions in the camps. Three brothers died from suffocation caused by coal-heater emissions in one camp north of Idlib, on 15 January, and a 13-year-old girl experienced severe suffocation due to a household gas leak in her home in the village of Balyun on the same day.
At the same time, attacks from Syrian forces are escalating. Local health authorities reported in mid-December that at least 99 people had been killed and more than 400 had been injured since 5 October.
Khaled Khatib, of the White Helmets, said: “Achieving complete peace, safety, security, and recovery, even from the devastating earthquake, is impossible without the implementation of justice and accountability. There must be an end to the 13 years of relentless attacks, bombardments, and displacement inflicted upon civilians by the Syrian regime and Russia.”
Amid these many challenges, one bright spot remains as a result of the media attention initially given to the disaster: it galvanised the humanitarian response of providing emergency shelters, food packages, and winter kits for children.
The UK’s Disaster Emergencies Committee (DEC) launched its appeal the same month to channel the wave of public sympathy for those caught up in the disaster. Despite the cost-of-living crisis, and less than 12 months after the record-breaking Ukraine appeal, it was the second most successful appeal in the DEC’s history.
DEC member charities, including Christian Aid, received a proportion of the total; and this was added to the £3.45 million raised by Christian Aid’s own supporters. Thanks to this public generosity, the charity’s local partners have helped nearly 105,500 people. The partners plan to reach around 289,500 more people by the time the projects are completed next year.
Without this secure funding, the longer-term help needed to rebuild schools and roads, alongside rehabilitating shattered communities, would be unsustainable. The focus now is on supporting community resilience.
Christian Aid/HurrasSix-year-old Sara (not her real name), who has lived in a tent with her mother, father, and two sisters at a collective shelter since the earthquake
Implementation is through centres that provide economic opportunities, legal awareness, education, protection, and skills support. Learning and teaching for children has been re-established after all the disruption through funding teachers and setting up summer schools, together with vocational training opportunities for women and girls.
One girl who has seen the whole life-cycle of this help is six-year-old Sara (not her real name), who has lived in a tent with her mother, father, and two sisters in a collective shelter since the earthquake. It is in the countryside of western Aleppo and is home to 200 people.
Sara said: “Life here in the camp is so tough. The tent is sometimes freezing and sometimes it’s too hot. I feel bored most of the time. I don’t know anyone. I have no friends.”
Since starting at a new school, Sara has made new friends and is involved in activities at a child-friendly space at the shelter run by a local charity, Hurras. Sara hopes that her family can move to a permanent new home soon.
Hurras’s advocacy manager, Maimouna Alammar, said: “We need to transition from a state where funding is provided, and the community is merely a recipient, to a state where the community is empowered to take on a leadership role.”
Peter Robertson is a senior humanitarian journalist at Christian Aid.