New York City: The international community must not abandon the 4 million children in Syria, for whom the February 6 earthquake came as “a blow on top of a blow”, the UN children’s fund, UNICEF, has warned.
“It is our duty to make sure we do not forget them,” said Adel Khodar, the organisation’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“It is our duty, too, to make sure that this earthquake does not make them worse than what they are, and we must leave aside anything that is political and focus only on the humanitarian.”
Ten days after a massive earthquake and aftershocks ravaged parts of southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, the death toll has passed 41,000 and continues to rise. UNICEF fears that thousands of children are among the dead, while millions of survivors are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
An estimated 7 million children were directly affected by the earthquake in both countries, including 2.5 million in Syria. Khodar told Arab News that what worries him most is that an unknown number of young people in remote villages have not reached international aid organizations and therefore have not yet received any humanitarian aid.
“What we know, we can address,” she said. “But what’s really worrying us is what we don’t know about.”
He said as hopes of survival in the rubble of collapsed buildings are fading, search and rescue operations are waning and therefore aid efforts will increasingly turn to helping people in areas that have not yet been reached.
Khodar said many children and their families are in dire need of additional support. In addition, many first responders and staff from local partner organizations that UNICEF works with were killed, injured or displaced, while their offices and equipment were damaged or destroyed.
Khodar said that the current situation in the country before the disaster was not the “normal background”. The earthquake is an “emergency on top of emergency” after a 12-year civil war that has drained Syria’s resources and destroyed much of its infrastructure.
She said that the natural disaster exacerbated “a very serious economic crisis” that was already unfolding, including a drop in the value of the Syrian pound, which in effect cost basic health services for children and the education system. fall is included.
In addition, the country has been dealing with a cholera epidemic since September, which was made worse by the damage caused to the water infrastructure by the war and is now worse than this month’s disaster.
“The earthquake has damaged the water tanks, especially the high altitude tanks,” Khodar said. “Some water pipes have also been uprooted, which means water availability is going to be a huge problem.
“And there’s also the fact that people will now be living inside large centers like schools or other public buildings: how do you get rid of wastewater and solid waste? All these things related to water sanitation and hygiene are a concern in those areas. which were already subject to cholera epidemics.
“We are very concerned that if spring arrives and the damaged water and sanitation infrastructure is not repaired, we will be heading for a serious health (crisis) with waterborne diseases (spreading) among children.”
The earthquake damaged or destroyed many buildings, so millions of children and their families are now sleeping on the side of roads or under bridges, or in public buildings, such as schools and bus stations.
Even those whose homes are still standing fear returning home to buildings that may be structurally unstable and vulnerable to aftershocks, or may collapse as a result of heavy rains or other severe weather events .
Sleeping outside, exposed to harsh winter conditions, in which freezing rain and snow are not uncommon, is increasing the number of children already suffering from hypothermia or acute respiratory infections, Khodar said.
UNICEF is also concerned about the mental health of children evacuated from their homes, she said, especially in the rebel-held northwest of the country where families were displaced at least once – and some more than three times – before the earthquake. had been displaced.
“Many kids said they felt like the whole world was revolving around them,” Khoder said. “This psychosocial impact on children is one of our first concerns.”
Further displacement, coupled with dire economic conditions, once again raises the risk of rising food insecurity, he said, and “the already high levels of poverty in those areas could lead to more cases of malnutrition among children.” “
Meanwhile, many people who lost their homes are taking shelter inside schools, Khodar said, which means classes will not resume immediately and children’s education will be affected.
UNICEF’s immediate efforts to save lives in Syria following the earthquake include shipments of hygiene kits, food, drinking water, warm winter clothing and tents, along with the provision of medical aid.
The organization is also working with local partners to provide psychosocial and mental health support to the children. “It’s distributing recreational kits to keep kids engaged and to try to establish a sense of normalcy in their lives and allow them to deal with that trauma,” Khodar said.
For a week after the earthquake, the Syrian regime refused to allow any aid to rebel-held areas in the country’s northwest, insisting that all humanitarian aid must pass through the capital, Damascus.
But after intense international pressure to open more crossings on Syria’s border with Turkey to allow aid deliveries, President Bashar Assad on Monday approved two additional crossing points, Bal al-Hawa and al-Rai, as an initial addition to three. Approved to reopen for a period. months, the United Nations said.
Despite the continued politicization of aid mechanisms in Syria, Khodar stated that “we are a child rights-based agency and (our) mandate is completely humanitarian. Our position is that we need to reach all children, wherever they are, in any Continuous efforts have to be made to reach through the medium.
“We cannot choose to use X or Y, we have to choose and use whatever is available and we will use all these means to push for continued access.
“The essential thing is to be able to reach every child. And it doesn’t matter how.