Political barriers delay assistance to Syrian earthquake victims: Relief chief

 

The leader of a significant aid organization warned on Friday that political barriers, primarily from Damascus, are delaying humanitarian relief efforts in the wake of Monday's terrible earthquake in northern Syria.

Because the area affected by the earthquake is home to pro-democracy and anti-regime activists as well as refugees from the 12-year war, Dr. Mohammed Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of the MedGlobal, which focuses on responding to disasters worldwide, including in the Middle East, claimed that aid efforts have been thwarted by the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.

In an interview with Arab News on the US Arab Radio Network, Sahloul claimed that the main barrier to providing aid to earthquake victims was the geopolitical differences brought on by years of war in Syria.

"Getting help to this region of Syria is really challenging. Few people are aware of geopolitics or the fact that there is currently more than one Syria. There are four Syrias. Each part is controlled by a different governing body and different entity,” he said.

"The majority of the help is going to Syria, which is under the control of the Assad regime in Damascus. In comparison to Idlib, which is controlled by the rebel organization Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and where the most of the dead are, areas under regime control are not as seriously affected.

The majority of the earthquake-prone region is under HTS authority. The other three regions are most of Syria, which is under the control of Assad's Russia-Iran coalition, the Kurdish-controlled SDF-controlled far northeast region, the Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, and Peace Spring administrative regions in the north.

According to Sahloul, 7.7 million Syrians are still residing in the earthquake zone. More than half of them—4.2 million—live in northwest Syria in HTS-controlled territory, and another 3.5 million do so in Turkiye, just across the border.

According to him, US sanctions on Syria do not prevent relief from reaching Syrian earthquake victims. Instead, the country's political differences are the source of the most conflict.