THE Syros President Bashar al-Assad today appealed for international aid to rebuild the areas of his country destroyed by the earthquakeduring a meeting with the UN emergency aid coordinator, the Syrian presidency announced.
Damascus has been isolated on the diplomatic scene since the war that erupted with the violent suppression of a popular uprising against the government in 2011. This isolation has complicated international efforts to advance aid to victims of the February 6 earthquake.
The president Assad “underlined the importance of international efforts aimed at helping to rebuild infrastructure in Syria“, according to the announcement of the presidency and as relayed by the Athens News Agency.
At the same time, the White Helmets, the Syrian rescue group, announced this evening that the dead in northwestern Syria from earthquake they amount to 2,274, according to the last count. They said their figures of more than 12,400 injured have been cross-checked with medical imgs.
Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, also met today in Damascus with the head of Syrian diplomacy, Faisal Moqdad.
He had earlier traveled to Aleppo, a northern Syrian city under the control of government forces, where the earthquake left more than 200,000 homeless, according to the World Health Organization.
In Aleppo, Griffiths told the press that the UN intends to raise money for organizations helping Syrians.
“The appeals we will make in the coming days – one for Syria and one for Turkey – will cover humanitarian needs for almost three months“, he stated.
The dead from the earthquake exceed 35,000 in the two countries, of which more than 3,500 in Syria where 5.3 million people, according to the UN, are at risk of being homeless.
Despite sanctions hitting Damascus, government-held areas of Syria receive international aid through UN agencies, many of which have offices in the Syrian capital.
But aid has taken time to reach Syria, where nearly 12 years of war have weakened the health system and several areas remain under rebel control.
Griffiths admitted on Sunday that the UN has so far left the people of northwestern Syria to their own devices.
Before the earthquake, almost all humanitarian aid destined for the more than four million people living in the rebel-held areas of northwestern Syria arrived from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point.
That aid transfer was interrupted by the earthquake before resuming on Thursday, while calls for the opening of other crossings are mounting.
Source: News Beast
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