The silence after the earthquake in northwestern Syria is deafening

 

 Rizik Al-Abi:

 'Syrian television channels have recently been showing images of president Bashar al-Assad visiting buildings damaged in last week’s earthquakes that have killed more than 40,000 people.

 In the wake of a natural disaster, such demonstrations of concern and empathy with those affected are commonplace among politicians worldwide.

 Yet some argue that the images on Syria’s screens are not what they seem and amount to disinformation.

 Moufida Anker, a Syrian journalist and activist, said: “It is terrifying what is happening. The dictator appeared to be laughing. The most terrible thing is that he deceived the international organisations that came to support him and deluded them that the buildings in front of them were destroyed by the earthquake. Many of them were destroyed earlier by his own planes; we have proof of that with the photos archived earlier.”

 Assad’s critics say he has found in this disaster an opportunity to break the international isolation that was imposed more than 10 years ago.

 The earthquake has increased the oppression of Syrians in the northwest of the country that has been going on since 2011. The UN says that since the uprising, the Assad régime has killed more than 400,000 Syrian citizens for reasons related to freedom of opinion, expression, and demonstration, and hundreds of thousands are in prison for the same reason.

 Syrians living in the northwest of the country, on the border with Turkey, and the hardest hit by the earthquake are being ignored and silenced.

 From the first moment of the earthquake, and despite the horror of what it left behind, the Assad régime has practised a media blackout regarding news from the northwest of the country. Assad’s loyal channels do not talk about the number of victims there, which far exceeded the number of victims in the areas controlled by the Syrian government.

 The media and social media in Assad-controlled areas are subject to great censorship by the Syrian government security forces, as civilians in these areas are afraid of showing any sympathy for the people in the northwest. We recently documented an arrest carried out by the régime’s security forces of a citizen from Homs who called his relatives in the north of the country to check on their health after the earthquake.

 The aid donations that have flowed into the country from the UN, people in Arab nations and other countries have not been reaching those in the northwest, with many saying much of the aid has been diverted into areas controlled by the Syrian government as well as being illegally sold in Syria’s markets.

 Dozens of photos have been circulated by activists in Damascus and Aleppo that appear to show influential members of the Assad régime to be involved. It is little wonder that Assad is now being called “the aid thief”.

 The first earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, hit Syria at 4.17am on Monday 6 February. A second quake, measuring 7.5, hit nine hours later.

 According to official statistics published by the volunteer Syrian Civil Defence organisation, or White Helmets as they are better known, 2,274 civilians died in north-western Syria as a result of the quakes.

 In the week since the disaster, the United Nations has admitted that it has been unable to provide help to the Syrians in the northwest of the country.

 The Idlib region and the area around Aleppo are home to more than five million Syrians, most of whom have been displaced after years of attacks from the Syrian army, whose mission is supposedly to protect Syrians.

 Martin Griffiths, the UN’s under-secretary-general and the emergency relief coordinator, said: “We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”

 This prompted Syrian activist and journalist Muhammad Tata to set up a fund to collect donations from the afflicted to the United Nations, an ironic action intended to criticise the international body’s inability to meet the urgent calls for aid.

 Many destroyed buildings have been adorned with the official flag of the United Nations, and signs placed on the rubble saying “We died…Thank you for letdown.”

 After the quake, it took many days before the Syrian government approved the opening of crossings from Turkey to facilitate the entry of aid, and this at a time when the Assad régime did not even recognise the earthquake victims in Idlib and area around Aleppo – the official government death toll left out those in areas not controlled by the government. When al-Salam and al-Rahi crossings were finally opened, Assad was accused of doing so for political gain.

 “They who died survived, and they who survived died” is a phrase now used by hundreds of Syrians on social media, amid wholesale grief and mourning for loved ones and friends and international impotence.'

It was one of the world’s deadliest catastrophes. Where was the UN?

 

 Raed al-Saleh:

 'It’s been an entire week since the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria — seven days of horror and heartache on a scale we did not experience even in the darkest hours of the Syrian conflict.

 Our team of White Helmets volunteer rescue workers in northwest Syria have been working around the clock night and day, pulling survivors from the rubble and searching for signs of life — with virtually no help from the outside world.

 Our hope of finding survivors has faded. As we pull more dead bodies from the rubble, my heart breaks for every soul that could have been saved and was needlessly lost because we did not get the help we needed in time.

 We are the only organization here with the equipment and training to undertake heavy search and rescue. The volunteers have been doing the impossible, and I am humbled by their selflessness and dedication.

 While Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, hailed the search and rescue efforts after the earthquake as “unparalleled in history,” in northwest Syria we were left to do what we could with limited existing equipment and manpower. Let me be clear: The White Helmets received no support from the United Nations during the most critical moments of the rescue operations, and even now we have no promise of assistance to restore our operational capacity and help the recovery and rehabilitation efforts.



 On Sunday, I met with Griffiths, who acknowledged that the UN had let down people in northwest Syria by failing to act promptly. “We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived,” Griffiths said on Twitter on Sunday.

 After the earthquake struck, it was four days before any international aid started to trickle into northwest Syria via the single border crossing authorized for UN aid deliveries at Bab al-Hawa. The first delivery of aid carrying tents, shelter materials and basic relief items had been scheduled before the earthquake. There was nothing to help with our rescue efforts.

 The UN’s failure to respond quickly to this catastrophe is shameful. When I asked the UN why help had failed to arrive in time, the answer I received was bureaucracy. In the face of one of the deadliest catastrophes to strike the world in years, it seems the UN’s hands were tied by red tape.

 Griffiths told Sky News over the weekend that the UN was asking the Security Council to authorize aid access through two additional border crossings, a misguided approach that wasted precious time. Legal analysts and scholars have argued against it, and humanitarian organizations say the need is too high for aid entry to be politicized.

 The United Nations needs to do better. Something is clearly broken if the very system that was set up to protect and save human lives during an emergency leaves children to die under the rubble as precious minutes and hours pass.

 The UN announced on Monday that the Bashar al-Assad régime had agreed to open two more crossing points into northwest Syria for three months for humanitarian aid. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said opening these crossing points “will allow more aid to go in, faster.”



 Assad’s intervention is a cynical move that has come far too late. The UN’s insistence on waiting for the Syrian régime’s permission — the very régime that has bombed, gassed, starved, forcibly displaced and imprisoned millions of Syrians — is unforgivable. It is no secret that the Syrian régime is not a credible partner in addressing the suffering of all Syrians in a neutral and impartial manner.

 For years the Assad régime with the help of its ally Russia has weaponized humanitarian aid and sought to tighten access to humanitarian aid for civilians in the northwest despite the fact that even before the earthquake, roughly 4.5 million people were facing a desperate humanitarian crisis.

 Time and again Russia has used its veto at the Security Council to shut border crossings, reducing the routes for delivery of cross-border aid via Turkey to a single entry. Opening additional crossings on a temporary basis is not enough — more cross-border routes were already sorely needed.

 We cannot forgive the United Nations for once again turning its back on Syrian civilians in their hour of need.



 As we searched through the rubble of thousands of buildings, it was the local affected communities that helped us most: lending their cars and heavy vehicles to the response, helping to dig, and donating fuel they could have used to keep themselves warm.

 They are struggling to deal with the new challenges this earthquake has brought. Syrians need and deserve more support. Our local organizations and local response deserve recognition and funding.

 There is no more time to waste. The UN secretary-general must have the vision and leadership to put himself on the right side of history. The Security Council and the régime should not be used to restrict humanitarian aid access in the future. Guterres should immediately ensure that the United Nations and international aid agencies have unhindered humanitarian access to ensure more lives are not lost.'