As hope fades for survivors of last week’s earthquake that devastated northwest Syria, a notebook found in the rubble recalls happier days.
On Monday (13), the humanitarian organization Os Capecetes Brancos published images that recall a time when the region was not devastated by a decade-long civil war.
In one entry, the author remembers celebrating Eid (the Muslim tradition that marks the end of the Ramadan fast) at home with friends and loved ones.
These moments of joy are fleeting. The author describes the joy of Eid as “if it were endless”.
The author writes about longing for what they call moments that have long been lost. Eid is now no longer a day of laughter, but a day of tears and longing.
Rescuers hope to find the author of the notebook.
“The sight of the notebooks broke my heart,” said Muhammad, a White Helmets volunteer in Jindiris, according to the tweet.
“My thoughts turned to my own children. I didn’t stop for a moment as I searched. Our hope was to find a child, woman or parent and reunite them with their family.”
For Syrians, the earthquake is just the latest in a decade-long series of tragedies.
Most of the casualties were in a region already struggling to rebuild vital infrastructure heavily damaged by aerial bombing during the country’s civil war, which the UN estimates has claimed the lives of at least 300,000 civilians since 2011.
Half of northwest Syria’s population of 4.6 million have been forced from their homes by the conflict, with 1.7 million now living in tents and refugee camps in the region, according to UN children’s agency Unicef.
Last year, the agency reported that 3.3 million Syrians in the area were food insecure.
“It’s a crisis within a crisis,” says Leena Zahra, a Syrian-American aid worker focused on increasing access to mental health for globally displaced people.
“This tragedy will affect children, entire families, some who have been displaced more than 20 times. It will only add to the psychological toll they already faced.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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