Syria, sealed in the face of the tragedy of the earthquakes: why doesn’t international aid arrive there?

Thousands of dead and injured, thousands of buildings collapsed, thousands of people buried under the rubble… and thousands of people working tirelessly to save as many lives as possible. The series of earthquakes that have devastated Turkey and Syria have caused an exceptional catastrophic situation -among the worst in the world, according to what President Erdogan recently indicated-, which has led the international community to quickly offer help in the search and rescue of the many affected.

“Adana has become the gateway for the arrival of international aid. Those who lead the operations are the Turks, who are amply prepared. But the dimension is such that they do need the help of foreign devices, which are already deployed on the ground in coordination with the Turks,” said the journalist Mikel Ayestaran, who has moved to one of the Turkish areas on Tuesday night. most affected by the earthquakes to narrate first-hand the moments after the tragedy.

Right now, more than 60,000 people from different countries -among them Spain- are collaborating in the removal of rubble and helping the aforementioned victims and missing persons together with hundreds of air and land vehicles. Only in Turkey has it been achieved save the lives of more than 8,000 people in the last 48 hours. “The work of these teams is also carried out surrounded by relatives, friends, neighbors, who are anxious to know if their loved ones come out alive,” Ayestaran explained, adding that it is “a job with a lot of pressure” and warning that ” there are places they haven’t reached yet.”

However, so far that aid is only reaching Turkey. In Syria, international aid is blocked from passing through sealed borders. “It is a purely political decision. We are in an unprecedented catastrophe in this region, and the political and military differences between the majority of governments and the Syrian regime means that no aid will reach Syrians who have suffered the same earthquake”, denounced the journalist, lamenting that “those who pay for these consequences are the citizens themselves, who barely have anything to rescue people.

Along these lines, the only direct way for supplies to enter the areas of northwestern Syria, the Bab al Hawa border crossing, has been damaged. Bab al Hawa is the only point through which supplies enter the areas of Idlib and the neighboring region of Aleppo in the hands of the Syrian opposition, with the exception of some specific shipments of humanitarian aid that the United Nations is managing to carry out from controlled areas. by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Humanitarian sources have assured that, in addition, the roads leading to the border crossing are in very poor condition, both on the Turkish and Syrian sides. In addition to Bab al Hawa, other public infrastructures have suffered damage in the area, hindering the development of humanitarian work, also weighed down by the general shortage of fuel in Syria and the lack of specialized machinery for rescue operations.