Northern Syria, already wracked by a refugee crisis and more than a decade of civil war, struggles to assist earth quake victims with little outside aid.
It took most of a day after hearing about the massive earthquake that struck northern Syria and southern Turkey for Safaa Naeman, a Syrian refugee living in Victoria, to make contact with family in the rebel-held city of Idlib.
By Wednesday, as the disaster’s death toll climbed toward 12,000, Naeman had heard from some of her relatives, but others remained missing under the rubble of collapsed buildings. Little help is making it into the region that has already been wracked by more than a decade of civil war.
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Survivors are afraid to go back inside potentially unstable houses and apartment blocks because aftershocks continue following the 7.8-magnitude quake Sunday night, even though the region is enduring freezing winter weather.
“We cannot imagine what has happened there,” Naeman said over the phone while preparing to hold a fundraiser at the Victoria restaurant, Syriana, that her family has opened.
“All my relatives are there, like my uncle, aunts, sister, brothers,” Naeman said. “My mom’s relatives, some of them are still under the rubble. We don’t know if they (have) died. Some of them we know died.”
And to Naeman’s understanding, rescuers with heavy equipment are having difficulty accessing many areas because roads into the region, which is outside control of the regime of authoritarian president Bashar al-Assad, remain closed.
Canada has announced $10 million in initial aid and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that Ottawa is working with its diplomatic staff in the region and international community to direct additional help.
“We are there to help. We’re just looking at how best to do it,” Trudeau said.
Defence Minister Anita Anand said late Tuesday that the government hasn’t ruled out sending a disaster assistance response team from the Canadian Armed Forces to help with the recovery effort.
Meanwhile, search teams from more than two dozen countries — including the U.S., Britain, China, Russia, Israel, Germany and India — have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel in Syria and Turkey. They include structural engineers, soldiers, paramedics and handlers with trained search dogs to help locate survivors.
In northern Syria, however, it is being reported that Assad’s regime has blocked aid from reaching the region, including the cities of Aleppo and Idlib.
Members of the Syrian diaspora, however, are working to find ways to get donations into the hands of people who need it, said Nihal Elwan, owner of the Syrian-cuisine Tayybeh catering.
Elwan, who is not Syrian herself, has not been directly affected by the disaster in the region, but many on Tayybeh’s team of 12 have been deeply hurt by the loss of family and friends.
“There’s been an incredible amount of crying happening in our kitchen,” Elwan said.
“What we’re doing is posting on our social media all the links that we see and trying to share as widely as we can,” said Elwan. “What I am hearing … is that a lot of the aid is going to the Turkish side, (but) very little is reaching the Syrian side.”
Elwan said the best way to get donations into Syria is directly through networks of known contacts in Turkey who can get the money across the border.
— with file from Canadian Press
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