USA TODAY International Edition
Syrians need relief from quakes and Assad
A war, a pandemic and now earthquakes make the situation in Northern Syria untenable. Let us not add international isolation to the mix.
I was overcome by an eerie sense of déjà vu last week as I inspected the calamitous effects of the massive twin earthquakes in northwestern Syria: buildings flattened to the ground, entire communities laid to waste, tens of thousands of first responders and volunteers picking at mountains of debris by hand, a frenzied search for any signs of life.
With a force 30 times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the twin earthquakes’ destruction in southern Turkey and northern Syria is dizzying: Tens of thousands have lost their lives, with that number expected to rise exponentially.
Crisis upon crisis
But as a co- founder of a humanitarian nonprofit organization working on the ground in war- ravaged Syria for the past decade, I have sadly seen this all before, year in year out, caused not by rare natural occurrences, but by frequent man- made airstrikes courtesy of a brutal rogue regime and its powerful allies.
That this force majeure should happen here only compounds the humanitarian angst, a crisis upon a crisis if you will. Syrians, still reeling from the effects of serial pounding that included direct aerial attacks on medical facilities, critical water and electricity grids, and civilian homes and infrastructure – not unlike what we are witnessing in Eastern Ukraine today – are the least prepared to deal with earthquakes.
Medical facilities, already sparse and overpopulated, are made up of recent structures desperately erected even as fighting raged on.
Sadly, the earthquakes put four such hospitals in northwest Syria out of service. The remaining hospitals are unable to tend to the overwhelming demand, earthquake victims or otherwise.
The coronavirus pandemic was already enough to prove that the medical infrastructure in northwest Syria was insufficient. The earthquakes have only magnified that fact.
Fear of more than aftershocks
The reality in northwest Syria today is that millions of people are not only afraid of further aftershocks and possibly another high- magnitude earthquake, but also possible attacks by the Assad regime and its allies.
An immediate comprehensive humanitarian intervention plan must be created at the highest levels of international cooperation in order to curtail further compounding of what is already one of the planet’s greatest humanitarian crises.
Some may say that Syrians whose homes were destroyed have experienced destruction before and can acclimate easier than others. But the reality is that many displaced Syrians are now homeless again; they’re struggling to find things to be hopeful about.
The international community abandoned them when they needed their help most as Assad regime jets bombed civilians killing millions, and the United Nations hid behind the shroud of international humanitarian law and diplomatic norms to justify their slow response to the unfolding catastrophe.
Even though the cross- border humanitarian aid delivery mechanism was extended last month, the amounts and types of aid are limited. It took three days after the earthquakes for the first delivery of six freight trucks filled with humanitarian aid to be delivered.
Even while regime- controlled areas were severely affected, the Assad regime’s representatives at the United Nations did not submit any request for aid, while demanding that any aid delivered to opposition- controlled areas must go through Damascus; they only recently conceded to U. N. negotiations for a three- month reprieve in the north – a full week after the earthquakes.
Technically, President Bashar Assad’s regime has zero presence in the north and its position is inconsequential, but the U. N. requires such theoretical concessions because it still recognizes Assad’s sovereignty, thanks to Russia’s role on the Security Council, despite it being wrought with corruption, not to mention war crimes against its own people.
That the Syrian people, as well as the United Nations, are openly being held hostage by a murderous regime – and its allies on the U. N. Security Council and other platforms of diplomatic relations – might go down as one of the most shameful blemishes of complacency, inaction and even culpability on the modern record of the international security order.
Stand up to Assad regime
Saving people from the rubble of collapsed buildings remains the priority for now. Any obstacles against full, fluid and long- term aid must be immediately and decisively dealt with.
The pitiful conditions Syria finds itself in today cannot be decoupled from the regime’s decadelong fratricide. We have a responsibility to ensure that our interest in Syrians does not dissipate with condemning the last air raid, but that Syrians are dealt with as humans and treated with the same dignity that any other person afflicted by natural or man- made disasters is treated.
If the U. N. continues to normalize the Assad regime and its representatives around the world as legitimate diplomats and even colleagues, while at the same time laying claim to the mantel of humanitarianism, then I am not a humanitarian.
I’m just a human.