Syrian quake aid is getting through – UN

The United Nations regional humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria has said the country’s death toll from last week’s deadly earthquake is likely to rise as teams scramble to remove rubble in hardhit areas.

Muhannad Hadi defended the UN’s response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticised as slow and inadequate.

The UN has reported a death toll of about 6,000 for all of Syria, including 4,400 in the rebel-held north-west.

That figure is higher than those reported by government authorities in Damascus and civil defence officials in the north-west, who have reported 1,414 and 2,274 deaths respectively.

“We’re hoping that this number will not increase by much,” Mr Hadi said. “But from what we are seeing, the devastation of this earthquake is really not giving us a lot of hope that this will be the end.”

Mr Hadi noted that even before the earthquake, there were some 4.1 million people in need of aid in north-west Syria, many of whom were already displaced and have now become homeless or displaced again.

Locals struggling with the aftermath of the earthquake have criticised delays in getting UN aid.

Roads leading to the one border crossing from Turkey to Syria that the UN is authorised to use were damaged by the

earthquake. The first convoy of aid entered north-west Syria three days after the quake.

The UN and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, reached a deal on Monday to open two additional crossings, but critics say the UN should have used additional crossings without waiting for approval, or found another

way to get aid in, given the dire situation on the ground.

Syrian rescue workers and those who lost homes and family members in the quake have criticised the slow arrival of aid, saying they felt abandoned by the international community.

Mr Hadi continued: “I can assure you that we have done everything we

can from the very beginning. We asked everybody to put the interests of the people first.”

Mr Hadi said 120 aid trucks had crossed into north-west Syria from Turkey as of yesterday.

No aid convoys have yet crossed from Damascuscontrolled territory into the rebel-held areas.

RUBBLE: Women sit in front of an area destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey.