‘Where are they?’ Anger in north-west Syria at slow earthquake response

Ruqaya Mohammed Mustafa stood next to her few remaining neighbours and the heaped piles they once called home and wearily welcomed the first visitors she had seen since the earthquake last week.

All this time, she and the people of Jindires, in northern Syria, had been begging for help. First to dig survivors from the rubble, then to provide shelter and food in the cruel grip of winter.

“Where was the world when it mattered?” asked Ruqaya, 58, flanked by the remains of buildings where up to 80 people had died. “Why tell our stories when there’s nothing left?”

As aid bosses travelled to regime-held Damascus and Aleppo, desperation in opposition-held north-west Syria had turned to anger, then grief. “We realised there was nothing coming for us,” Ruqaya said. “We dug the bodies out with our bare hands. Those we couldn’t reach died.”

With no one now left alive under the devastation in Jindires, a scramble is under way to source life-saving supplies. Not for the first time, residents of northern Syria feel forgotten – by a world inured to their suffering after more than a decade of civil war, and by unresponsive global bodies that defer to political process.

A UN announcement on Monday that it had won the approval of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to open border crossings into the opposition-held north-west drew particular scorn.

Jindires was home to displaced people from all corners of Syria, especially those who had defied Assad and been forced into exile as a result. Tareq Aamer was one of them. “Assad is worse than the earthquake,” he said. “And the UN is killing us more by its policy towards Bashar. We don’t need to wait for them to open the borders. They are already open. Why are people asking for their permission?”

The first non-scheduled aid convoy crossed the border at Bab al-Salam on Tuesday carrying tents, medicines and blankets – a speck in the collective needs of a province ravaged by more suffering over the past decade than most other places in the Middle East.

Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said the UN announcement was redundant and drew on narrow and bitterly contested interpretations of international law.

“The Assad regime has no right to be the ultimate authority on the fate of millions of civilians in non-regime-held areas of Syria,” he said. “The UN doesn’t need a [security council] resolution for cross-border humanitarian assistance, yet it is allowing Assad to be the only representative of the people he has oppressed for 12 years.”

Ali Bakr, 60, was also demanding help for residents of Jinderes – the few still alive that he knew. Out of 18 members of his family, only one had survived, he said. “I need mental help to calm my nerves. I dug the bodies out with my own hands.”

Next to him stood Omran Sido, 36, whose three children, aged four months, six and eight, all died in the same building. “How will I ever recover from this?” he said. “It’s made worse by knowing that no one else cares.”

Along the road to Jindires, near the city of Afrin, a convoy of trucks carrying aid from Saudi Arabia had parked up. Flags announcing Qatari deliveries flew nearby. NGOs active inside the province have also distributed relief from pre-existing stockpiles.

But the piecemeal global response and readiness, even now, to defer to Assad hangs a pall over the region. “I went to Ukraine and saw UN cars every five metres,” said one resident – one of few with permission to cross into neighbouring Turkey and travel beyond. “I understand what they’ve been through. But so have we, and we continue to.”

In hospitals, medicines and morale are running low. Afrin hospital, one of the region’s biggest, received 750 patients, many of them badly injured or dying, in the hours after the earthquakes. Many were children, up to 15 of whom required amputations. “They are the most difficult things to perform,” said Wadan al-Nasr, who performed most of the surgeries. “Not technically, but because of what they represent.”

In a nearby ward, three-year-old Nour lay sleeping, her one remaining leg covered by a blanket. Her other leg had been amputated in the rubble of the family home, where her mother and siblings had died. Her father came to visit her most days, and her comfort in between was a hand-shaped balloon. Nour’s tiny hand held one of its fingers.

In a sports hall, Wahid Khalil had bunkered down with what remained of his family. His young daughter was listless and feverish. A young doctor in a white coat rushed her away amid crowds of men and women who wandered slowly around their makeshift home. A little while later, the girl returned with a lollipop and a cup of medicine, a rare glimpse of hope after a dark week.

But elsewhere there was little to celebrate. “The countries that claim humanitarian rights are paramount, where are they?” asked Aamer, back in Jindires. “They end up exploiting our suffering. They seem to care about animal rights more than humanitarian rights.

“This earthquake will give up more bodies, when we can get to them,” he said. “But this regime has many more secrets that need uncovering. The Russians have tested 400 weapons on us and turned us into lab rats. It’s misery on top of suffering. The world must help us rebuild and it needs to learn the lessons of history. Assad is not your friend.”