As the death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquake hits 24,000, aid begins to trickle in.
The United Nations estimates that as a direct result of the earthquake, at least 870,000 people in these two nations are in desperate need of food.
ANTAKYA: On Saturday, international help began to make its way into regions of Turkey and Syria as rescuers labored to extricate children from the wreckage in areas hit by a powerful earthquake that has killed over 24,000 people.
The afflicted areas saw a winter freeze, which hindered rescue attempts and added to the misery of millions of people, many of whom were in urgent need of assistance.
After the earthquake, which has left up to 5.3 million people homeless in Syria alone, the UN warned that at least 870,000 people in the two nations urgently required food.
Aftershocks from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday have increased the death toll and drastically disrupted the lives of survivors.
Fidan Turan, a pensioner in Turkiye’s southern city of Antakya, said, “I can’t conceive where I’ll be tomorrow. When I see the wrecked houses, the bodies, it’s not that I can’t see where I will be in two or three years.
She remarked, “We’ve lost 60 members of our extended family.” “Sixty! How shall I put it? God has ordained it.
In order to supply food rations to at least 590,000 newly displaced persons in Turkey and 284,000 in Syria, the United Nations World Food Programme made an appeal for $77 million.
It added that out of those, 45,000 were refugees and 545,000 were internally displaced individuals.
human rights access
The affected region is home to Syrian rebels and Kurdish terrorists, and the UN rights office on Friday pleaded with all parties to permit humanitarian access.
Ankara and its Western allies, who view the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party as a terrorist organisation, announced a temporary cessation of hostilities to facilitate relief efforts.
Four million people in rebel-held northwest Syria depend on humanitarian aid, but there haven’t been any deliveries in three weeks from government-controlled areas.
The Syrian government claimed to have given the go-ahead for the distribution of relief to earthquake-stricken regions outside of its jurisdiction.
Only two assistance convoys from Turkiye, where authorities are conducting an even larger earthquake relief operation of their own, have crossed the border this week.
Hospitals had previously been damaged, and there had been energy and water shortages due to a decade of civil conflict and aerial bombardment by Syria and Russia.
The Security Council was asked by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to approve the opening of new humanitarian supply crossing points between Turkey and Syria. The council will gather to talk about Syria, perhaps early the following week.
Numerous people have been forced to spend their evenings in their automobiles due to the winter freeze or to gather around homemade fires that have proliferated around the earthquake-affected area.
Anger grows
After five days of sorrow and agony, anger at the subpar construction and the Turkish government’s handling of the country’s worst calamity in almost a century has gradually grown.
12,141 buildings were either completely destroyed or severely damaged, according to local officials.
The odds of being discovered alive are minimal because, according to Mustafa Erdik, a lecturer at Istanbul’s Bogazici University, “the floors are heaping on top of each other.”
A contractor who was trying to leave the country after his building was destroyed in the devastating earthquake was apprehended by police on Friday.
The tremor was the strongest and deadliest since a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 1939, which killed 33,000 people.
20,665 deaths were reported in Turkey and 3,553 in Syria, according to officials and medical personnel. The current confirmed total is 24,218.
As a result of growing resentment over how the Turkish government handled the catastrophe, the tone of the country’s presidential election campaign has changed in advance of the June elections.
According to Hakan Tanriverdi of the province of Adiyaman, “People who didn’t perish from the earthquake were left to die in the cold.”
For the first time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged on Friday that his country was unable to reach and assist the victims “as swiftly as we had intended.”
Cypriot youngsters
24 Cypriot children between the ages of 11 and 14 who were in Turkiye for a volleyball event when the earthquake engulfed their hotel were among the worst casualties.
Ten of their bodies were returned to northern Cyprus, where they were born. According to Turkish media, at least 19 members of the group—including 15 accompanying adults—have now been officially ruled deceased.
