Europe
14 aid trucks enter northwest Syria as earthquake death toll crosses 22,000
By
The Washington Post February 10, 2023
Ellen Francis, Niha Masih, Claire Parker and Kareem Fahim
The Washington Post February 10, 2023
The first United Nations cross-border aid convoy successfully reached north-west Syria on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, after the earthquake temporarily disrupted operations. (UN OCHA/Facebook)
Fourteen more aid trucks entered northwestern Syria on Friday, after the earthquake disaster halted deliveries to a region battered by war and already facing a humanitarian crisis. The trucks crossed from Turkey a day after the first U.N. aid convoy entered the Syrian opposition enclave since the quakes flattened entire neighborhoods on both sides of the border. In rebel-held northwest Syria, the civilian rescue group known as the White Helmets criticized what it called the slow pace of international assistance.
The combined death toll has surpassed 22,000, and the disaster has left thousands of people homeless. Rescuers in southern Turkey are fighting bitter cold to find survivors under the rubble, as efforts to help pour in from around the world.
Here's the latest on the aftermath of the earthquakes:
• The death toll in Turkey and Syria has crossed 22,000. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that at least 19,388 people were killed and 77,711 injured in the country by Monday's quakes. In rebel-held northwestern Syria, rescue workers said more than 2,037 people died and 2,950 were injured. In government-controlled Syria, state media reported 1,347 deaths and 2,295 people injured.
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went to Aleppo in his first public visit to the disaster zone since the quakes. His office shared photos Friday of the Syrian leader meeting with people at the site of ongoing rescue operations and at a hospital in Aleppo alongside his wife, Asma al-Assad.
• Friday's aid trucks headed to the Idlib region in northwestern Syria, where millions of people are displaced, the International Organization for Migration said. The delivery follows a convoy that took supplies including blankets, mattresses and tents for about 5,000 people in the rebel-held region Thursday. The United Nations has said damaged roads complicated relief distribution. Aid efforts have been hampered by the effects of the war that divided the country into areas of government and opposition control.
• The head of the Syria Civil Defense criticized the delay in the arrival of international aid to northwest Syria. In a news conference Friday, Raed Al Saleh said the United Nations "has not provided anything" until that point to assist the rescue efforts. The group anticipates the arrival of international aid later Friday and Saturday, he said, but that assistance will go toward removing rubble and unstable buildings.
• Erdogan described the quakes as one of the country's biggest disasters as he traveled to regions in the south. On Friday, he visited the devastated cities of Adiyaman and Malatya. More than 100,000 people - including soldiers, police officers, firefighters and aid workers - have been called into action in Turkey.
• Satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed extensive damage to infrastructure in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria. The quakes destroyed grain silos, cracked an airport runway and collapsed roads and highways, images from the U.S.-based firm show.
• Countries are ramping up efforts to deliver aid, and the World Bank has announced $1.78 billion in aid to Turkey for relief and recovery efforts. Turkey said more than 90 countries have offered help, as rescue workers have flown in from places around the world, including Algeria, Taiwan and Pakistan.
• The United States announced $85 million in urgent humanitarian assistance for the two countries. Two U.S. urban search-and-rescue teams have been working over the past 48 hours "day and night" to help with victim recovery in Adiyaman, Jeffry L. Flake, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, told The Washington Post on Friday. The teams from Fairfax, Va., and Los Angeles include 160 personnel, a dozen dogs and 170,000 pounds of equipment and "are making good progress," he said. Additional U.S. military helicopters are slated to arrive at Incirlik Air Base in the coming days, and a U.S. field hospital has been set up in Hatay, another hard-hit province.
• U.S. financial aid has also been allocated to relief efforts in Syria, in both government-controlled and rebel-held parts of the country, through "partner organizations," Flake said. It was unclear exactly how much of the aid package would be allocated to Syria, which has been isolated because of a civil war as well as Western sanctions. A spokeswoman for the embassy said U.S. sanctions did not prevent the provision of humanitarian aid.
• Germany, France and Britain announced different aid efforts for Syria, where the government is under Western sanctions and access to the rebel-held region is restricted. Germany promised U.N. funding, while France announced emergency aid and Britain said it was supporting Syrian civil defense workers known as the White Helmets, who operate outside government control in the northwest.
• The U.S. Treasury Department granted a license to all transactions related to earthquake relief in Syria, which would otherwise have run afoul of existing sanctions against Assad's government, it said Thursday.
• Planes carrying aid from Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates arrived in Damascus and Aleppo on Friday to support the Syrian government's relief efforts, the state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The Emirati plane contained some 95 tons of food and relief supplies, while the Tunisian plane that landed in Aleppo brought medicines, blankets, food and medical devices.
• More than 80,800 people were evacuated from parts of southern Turkey hit by the quakes, the country's disaster management agency said Thursday.
• A toddler and his 7-year-old brother were rescued from the wreckage in Turkey's Hatay more than 100 hours after the quakes, Turkish media reported Friday. Rescue workers also pulled a newborn baby and her mother out alive from under the rubble in the southern region, the reports said.
• In a 20-hour operation, rescuers pulled a woman and her 6-year-old daughter alive from under a collapsed house earlier in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. German and British aid agencies said the two were at risk of freezing to death. They used heavy equipment and manually moved rubble to create a tunnel.
The Washington Post's Amar Nadhir contributed to this report.