Red Cross seeking access to help Idlib’s earthquake survivors

EU poised for latest pledging appeal to reach millions still affected by disaster

A convoy of aid lorries en route to Aleppo, Syria. EPA

The International Committee of the Red Cross is seeking access to Idlib in north-western Syria shortly before the EU starts a pledging conference for survivors of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria.

Calls for funding will be made to the international community at the meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday as Syria struggles to recover from a decade of war and the quake on February 7.

The disaster and subsequent aftershocks killed more than 8,000 people and injured another 12,000 in Syria. Of the 8.8 million Syrians affected, 3.7 million were children and pregnant women. About 50,000 people in southern Turkey lost their lives.

“We are negotiating but the fact is we don’t have access,” Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, told The National.

In 2011, Syria underwent a nationwide uprising that has resulted in a brutal civil war between President Bashar Al Assad's regime and armed rebel groups. It has lasted for 12 years and ushered in foreign interference, complicating the conflict.

“In north-west Syria we are still struggling for cross-line access, we’ve done remote activities which were critical for the population in the area of Idlib but it’s far from enough,” Mr Carboni said.

Syria’s north-western province of Idlib was among the areas worst hit by the earthquake. Idlib is the country’s last rebel-held enclave, which remains outside of the government’s control, with millions of refugees resettling in the area.

“We call on all actors who have a say or capacity to make our humanitarian presence possible,” he said.

The ICRC official said "humanitarian actors cannot compensate for the fact that Syria is not bouncing back to some form of normality".

A negotiated, political solution is the only way out of the conflict, he said. Syria’s various stakeholders are the ones who can give the ICRC access to Idlib, he added.

Humanitarian needs in Syria have reached an all-time high. Out of a population of 22 million, 15 million are in need of assistance to meet their basic survival needs.

Brussels conference

Heads of states, civil society and non-government groups will attend the two-day conference in the Belgian capital that is aimed at supporting the future of Syria and the region.

"It’s important to remember that while we have many other crises in the world, for the people in Syria the situation is not improving," Mr Carboni said.

The conference will be a reminder to the international community that "Syria remains one of the largest protracted crises and we had the earthquake a couple of months ago and it really tested the resilience of people".

Mr Carboni was referring to the material aspect as many Syrians lost their homes.

"I was really struck when I got there to see how people were emotionally weakened by 12 years of conflict and the earthquake made it very different from the psychosocial point of view," he said.

The combined death toll for the quake, in Turkey and Syria, is estimated to be more than 50,000 people. Many of those displaced are stranded and have nowhere to go.

Years of war have hit Syria's economy, pushing 90 per cent of the population below the poverty line, and unemployment as high as 50 per cent. It has weakened an already ailing health sector, as nearly 50 per cent of the country’s hospitals and clinics have been destroyed by the war.

People in the region have little access to medical care and essential supplies, creating life-threatening situations that have already led to preventable deaths.