Syria: Earthquake hits the already traumatized population

Enlarge image

Left to fend for themselves because of the conflict: earthquake victims in the province of Idlib, northern Syria

Photo: Ghaith Alsayed/AP

When she felt the first tremor, Mariam* took her daughter in her arms and ran.

Barefoot and without a headscarf, she hurried down the stairs, the steps of which wobbled, three floors to the ground floor.

Her husband carried their son, and the family wandered aimlessly through the streets of Aleppo.

There were people everywhere who didn't know where to go.

It was raining and bitterly cold.

Then the ground shook again and an entire building collapsed not far from Mariam's house.

She panicked.

This is how Mariam, who does not want to give her real name, describes what she experienced.

She reports from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo via voice messages because the connection for calls is too bad.

"For three hours, no help came," she says, people tried to save their loved ones from the rubble with their bare hands.

Mariam transmits the news from her apartment, she has returned, despite the cracks in the building, despite the danger of collapsing: all of this is still better than the rain and the cold on the street, she says.

Do sanctions hinder aid?

Mariam lives in the south of Aleppo in the Salahuddin district, which was once in rebel hands.

Many houses were damaged by airstrikes or mortar shells before President Bashar al-Assad's regime took control of all of Aleppo back at the end of 2016.

Mariam stayed on site the whole time.

“Yes, there were air raids, yes, there was shelling, but our financial situation was bad.

We had nowhere to go,” she says.

This had terrible consequences for her: she lost her eldest son and a daughter in a bomb explosion in the war.

Since then, the situation in Aleppo has calmed down - but the war was never really over, reconstruction was a long time coming, fighting is still going on a little further north of the country.

And then came the earthquake catastrophe, something that took years for the war to happen overnight happened: thousands were killed and injured, hundreds of buildings were destroyed.

There is still no definitive number of victims, and more buildings are still in danger of collapsing, especially those that were damaged earlier in the war.

The ongoing conflict makes it difficult to help the people in Syria.

In places under the Assad regime's control, such as Aleppo, electricity and petrol are in short supply, and the state, hollowed out by war, economic crises and corruption, is on the rocks.

The President of the Syrian Red Crescent, which is close to the regime, called for international sanctions to be lifted to facilitate humanitarian aid in government-controlled areas.

However, she is exempt from the sanctions anyway.

Nonetheless, trade restrictions can make aid more difficult indirectly.

For example, banks hardly carry out transactions to and from Syria for fear of unknowingly coming into contact with a sanctioned party.

This in turn hinders the supply chains and the cooperation between aid organizations and local companies.

"It felt like the end of the world"

After all, planes with aid deliveries from Russia, Algeria, Iran, Iraq or the United Arab Emirates, i.e. countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the regime, have landed in government territory.

And unlike the US, which refuses to cooperate with the Syrian regime, the EU has signaled a willingness to help after Damascus first formally asked for assistance.

In the rebel areas of north-west Syria, on the other hand, people are still waiting for help.

In recent years, aid supplies have only been able to get there via a single border crossing via Turkey.

The other border crossings were closed due to opposition from the Assad regime and its Russian allies in the UN Security Council.

The regime wants humanitarian aid for all areas of Syria to be distributed through Damascus, anything else violates Syrian sovereignty.

But the Syrian authorities have repeatedly and systematically obstructed supplies to rebel areas with the aim of starving them out.

At the moment, however, almost nothing is getting to Syria via Turkey - because of damaged roads and infrastructure and also because Turkey itself has enormous needs.

Some international aid organizations are also reluctant because Islamists control parts of the rebel areas.

Enlarge image

After the war, the earthquake: damaged building in Aleppo

Photo: Firas Makdesi / REUTERS

Now more border crossings are to be opened by the Turkish side.

The first trucks with relief supplies were able to cross the border on Thursday.

Ismail Alabdullah of the White Helmets, a Syrian rescue organization in opposition areas, says there is a lack of equipment to rescue the victims.

And the hospitals, which had been badly affected by the war, blockades and targeted air raids, were completely overwhelmed by the thousands of injuries: "We're running out of time."

more on the subject

• Erdoğan in the disaster area: the earthquake becomes a political issue Maximilian Popp reports from Hatay

• Difficult relief mission: How long can a person survive under rubble?By Julia Köppe

• Fear for the family in Syria: "Did everyone survive?" An essay by Asia Haidar

It is difficult to talk to those affected in Syria.

Local contacts tell of people in shock, disoriented and unable to cope with the impact of this event - after war, persecution and destruction.

Kifah Khalil Sido struggles for words on the phone.

Like Mariam, she comes from Aleppo, but the 53-year-old fled to Afrin near the Turkish border ten years ago.

Her voice sounds brittle, she repeatedly falters in conversation.

She lost ten family members, she says.

Their children are untraceable.

“My husband and I miraculously survived.

We didn't get any help, we're on the road and don't know where to go," says Sido.

She pauses, says nothing.

Then she says in a trembling voice, "It felt like the end of the world."

Abandoned by the world

The people are at a loss for words, and yet they want the international community to finally take note of their situation.

You feel abandoned, have for a long time.

"Please let the world know what's happening," says Suhail Abu Jubran, 49. The psychotherapist and nurse also lives as a refugee in Afrin and reports by phone - he originally comes from Daraa in southern Syria, where the 2011 uprising once took place started against the regime.

Abu Jubran saw a lot and went through a lot, he documented the uprising on camera, had to seek refuge in the north in 2018 after the regime had recaptured the south.

Despite all the years of war and expulsion, says Abu Jubran, he has never experienced anything so terrible.

"I see people talking to themselves as if they've gone mad, as if they've lost their minds," says Abu Jubran.

He saw nervous breakdowns, signs of depression, children who were frozen and unable to move.

He studied psychology, he knows the symptoms and the technical terms for them.

Nevertheless, he too is desperately searching for words: »I cannot describe what happens to the psyche of the people here after these earthquakes.«

*Name changed