A massive 7.8 earthquake hit North Syria and Turkey on Monday, 6 February 2023. The death toll is currently (as of 15 February) over 41,000, but that number is expected to double. Watching footage of the aftermath of this earthquake, our hearts sink, we suffer pain, and our emotions are jolted. It has been scientifically proven that helping your fellow humankind in these catastrophic natural disasters can liberate positive endorphins assisting physical and emotional pain.
Turkey is not without ongoing suffering from this earthquake but has the infrastructure, earthquake regulations for its’ buildings, hospitals, transportation systems and equipment to retrieve the living and the dead from the rubble. Therefore, I will focus on the most injured casualty of this earthquake, Syria.
Twelve years before the earth viciously vibrated, Syria was already carrying heavy baggage. Since 2012, Syria has been active in civil war, which forced the displacement of hundreds of thousands of its people to the North. Access to the area is difficult because the roads are inoperable. The Government of Syria identifies its’ residents of North Syria as aliens and the enemy. They create difficult paths for foreign aid to arrive and assist the desperate needs of their people. North Syria has no basic infrastructure, including earthquake-proof buildings, hospitals, medical support, safe drinking water and sewage systems. Many buildings simply fragmented, killing and entombing thousands of human beings, fathers, mothers, children and babies. Abu Muhammad from Jinderes North Syria said, “dozens of families could have stayed alive if heavy equipment had been available, but they all died due to the extreme cold and being cut off from food and water.”
In one town, Harem in North West Syria, a journalist commented that he could see children digging through the rubble looking for the dead as no help was received to save those buried but still alive. They can hear lots of assisted activity over the hill in Turkey, including; heavy machinery working to clear the rubble and find people and ambulance sirens taking the injured and dead to hospitals. The point is obvious: Turkey, with its finances and infrastructure, will overcome this hideous earthquake’s trail of devastation. North Syria, however, with its poverty, forced internal migration from civil war and rejection by the governing powers of Syria, will not be able to achieve an acceptable standard of human life. The people of North Syria are running out of gas with no petrol station in sight, metaphorically starving while they can hear others eating.
Today, the remaining residents of North Syria are being helped minimally by foreign aid, and they do not have the infrastructure and finances to survive. These people need resources. If you would like to help the people of North Syria, I recommend two organisations doing amazing work in this region.
- The White Helmets are a volunteer organisation set up in 2014 to help civilians during the civil war. They are one of the few groups able to assist the people of North Syria. Members live in the areas affected by the earthquake and continue to help the survivors. On 13 February 2023, the head of the White Helmets main rescue group, Raed al Saleh, said, “The search for survivors was about to end in the northwest of Syria”. The White Helmets are now focusing on the survival of the survivors of this horrific earthquake. https://www.whitehelmets.org/en
- UNISEF provides basic food, water and housing to the victims but also works to reunite children and families who have been dislocated after the earthquake. https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/Syria-Turkiye-earthquake
As mentioned earlier, helping fellow humanity makes you feel better by releasing positive endorphins. Let’s help the people of North Syria survive and, metaphorically but physically, deliver the desperately needed food and resources they can hear being eaten in the distance.
Soozi’s Grown Up Life 