The few hospitals left after years of airstrikes by the Russian and Syrian regimes were ill-equipped to handle an emergency of this magnitude. Medical facilities in the northwest were overwhelmed, with the wounded lying on the corridors and floors.
The situation in Syria is very different from Turkey, where dozens of countries and international organizations are providing rescue teams, donations and aid. Deliveries of emergency supplies to earthquake-hit areas in northern Syria have been complicated by a long-running civil war between the Syrian government and opposition forces led by President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of killing his own people. It is
Significant international aid has barely entered the enclave, leaving doctors feeling helpless.
“This is the biggest disaster we have ever experienced,” Dr. Ahmad Alaabd told CNN this weekend during a visit to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS)-run Babs Al Hawa hospital. “We’ve dealt with war wounds, but we’ve never dealt with so many casualties.”
SAMS and others appealed to the international community for urgent assistance, but it was too little and too late, just starting to trickle in last weekend.
“We asked for help, but there was no response during the first couple of days, which was especially important,” said Alaabd. “We lost many patients because of the lack of medical supplies. With medical supplies, we could have saved many more lives.”
Dozens have been hospitalized requiring complex surgeries, many in intensive care units. The necessary supplies and equipment have not yet arrived.
Syrians say their cries for help are being ignored in the darkest days of the war, and they will have to pick up the debris again without international assistance.
In the Idlib and Aleppo countryside, entire neighborhoods have been leveled. On Saturday, CNN witnessed residents of Buthaina and Harem, one of Idlib’s worst-hit towns, digging through rubble using their bare hands and garden tools.
They lost all hope of survivors – now they just I want to bury their dead.
Children were clearing debris and searching for the bodies of their loved ones. One man said he was looking for brothers, cousins, nephews and nieces.
“Twenty-one, two of them children,” Ahmad said, deadpan and numb.
feeling abandoned
Life in this part of Syria seems like an endless cycle of loss and grief. Most have fled their homes several times, fleeing the Syrian regime and a ruthless campaign by Russia.
After the worst natural disaster the region has witnessed in generations, the lack of urgent mobilization by the international community has made them even more disillusioned.
Ismail Abdullah of the White Helmets told CNN that his group has documented the suffering for a decade, but their repeated calls for help have come to naught.
“We called the whole world a million times to stop the bombing, but no one stopped. They said they used chemical weapons. I see that they don’t see people as human beings,” Abdullah said. “Had they sent heavy equipment and advanced search and rescue equipment to find people trapped under the rubble, of course more people could have been saved.”
On Friday, after a 108-hour search, the group, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense Force, announced the end of the rescue operation. Instead, the mission became one of search and recovery.
Aid groups were already warning of a humanitarian crisis when the harsh winter began to set in.
In Bushaina, the lucky ones have tents. Others are sleeping in the open with their children, desperate for shelter.
“We were sleeping under a tree…but we came here because it was so cold,” said Umm Sultan, crying as he held his two-year-old grandson in his arms.
“I wish I had died with everyone else so I wouldn’t have to go through this,” she said. “We survived just to live through this misery and anguish.”
A mother of eight, she has lost all trust in the world in response to Syria’s plea.
She and her family have been homeless for seven years. They escaped airstrikes in Aleppo province and approached the Turkish border, believing it to be safer.
“We came here to escape the plane…the airstrikes were killing us,” she told CNN.
UN admits failure in Syria
On the night of the earthquake, people were drenched in heavy rain, freezing, with nowhere to hide, running barefoot and screaming through the streets, she recalls.
“I heard people yelling ‘get out… get out’. Then they went quiet. They were all dead. No one took them out. Two days later. , they pulled. [out] little boy and girl. Their corpses were still warm. ”
As the man mourned the dead, the mother broke down in tears, and anguished cries of mourning for the whole family echoed through the parking lot.
“This is a little boy…this is a little girl,” said one man as he loaded body after body into the truck.
Aid finally began to trickle in over the weekend by a UN convoy that crossed into the region from Turkey through the Bab Al Hawa crossroads. But how far will it go?
On Sunday, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths tweeted from the Turkish-Syrian border that people in northwestern Syria “are right to feel abandoned”.
“So far, we have disappointed the people of northwestern Syria,” said Griffiths, adding that his focus and mandate now is “to rectify this failure as soon as possible.”
Journalists Zaher Jaber and CNN’s Celine Alkhaldi and Chris Liakos contributed to the report.
