White Helmets slam UN quake response in rebel areas of Syria
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Members of the Syrian civil defence, known as the White Helmets, watch for signs of survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building, in Salqin, a village near the border with Turkey.
PHOTO: AFP
SARMADA, Syria - The White Helmets rescue group accused the United Nations on Friday of botching its response in rebel-held areas of northwestern Syria to this week’s devastating quake.
Leveraging years of experience gleaned during Syria’s more than decade-long civil war, the White Helmets have been spearheading rescue efforts in rebel areas with virtually no outside help.
“The UN has committed a crime against the Syrian people in the north-west,” the group’s chief, Mr Raed Saleh, told AFP, noting that UN agencies had not delivered any quake-specific relief to survivors since the disaster hit before dawn on Monday.
“The UN must apologise to the Syrian people.”
Mr Saleh said the White Helmets’ top priority was “shelter for tens of thousands of families who have lost their homes”, as well as heating, personal hygiene kits and access to clean water.
The rescuers have searched more than 300 heavily damaged buildings, with six to 12 more locations they have yet to sweep, he said.
Quake survivors have flocked to camps erected for people displaced by war from other parts of Syria. Many lost their homes or are too scared to return to damaged houses.
A UN aid convoy crossed into rebel-held Syria from Turkey on Friday, the second such delivery since the quake, a border official told AFP.
The 14-truck convoy carried non-food items such as “humanitarian kits, solar lamps, blankets and other assistance”, International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon told reporters in Geneva.
The aid “will be sufficient for about 1,100 families in the quake-hit areas in Idlib” province, he added.
On Thursday, a first convoy entered rebel-held areas carrying basic relief items
White Helmets chief Raed Saleh holds a press conference in Sarmada, in Syria’s rebel-held northwestern Idlib province, on Feb 10, 2023.
PHOTO: AFP
The Syrian government said later on Friday it had approved the delivery of humanitarian aid
At least 284,000 people have become newly displaced by the quake, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday, with Middle East regional director Corinne Fleischer adding that no WFP trucks had “gone across the border”.
“The roads are damaged and that slows down our deliveries,” she told reporters in Geneva.
Currently, just one crossing on the Syria-Turkey border is open to UN aid deliveries.
UN chief Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council on Thursday to authorise the opening of additional crossings for the delivery of quake relief. AFP
