UN Continues Cross Border Aid To Earthquake-Hit Syria As People Look To Build New Life
Twenty-two trucks carrying aid from the World Food Programme and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) crossed the Bab Al-Hawa crossing from Türkiye.
The world body is continuing its cross-border aid delivery into Northwest Syria in the aftermath of the massive earthquakes, said a UN spokesman on Thursday.
Twenty-two trucks carrying aid from the World Food Programme and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) crossed the Bab Al-Hawa crossing from Türkiye, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Two additional trucks carrying tents provided by the UNHCR crossed the Bab Al-Salam crossing. In Northwest Syria, shelter needs are the top priority among displaced people, he said.
The Bab Al-Hawa crossing point was authorized by the UN Security Council for cross-border aid delivery into Northwest Syria.
After the Feb. 6 earthquakes, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decided to open the two crossing points of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra'ee from Türkiye to Northwest Syria for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid.
Dujarric said many homes had collapsed in the aftermath of the earthquakes. As of Tuesday, more than 8,900 buildings had been destroyed or damaged in Northwest Syria, leaving 11,000 people homeless.
Other priorities, obviously, in addition to shelter needs and food, are cash assistance and supplies to cope with the harsh winter weather conditions, he said.
Hundreds of thousands displaced eager to build new life after Türkiye earthquakes
More than a week after two massive earthquakes leveled a swathe of Türkiye's southeastern region, hundreds of thousands of people have left the quake-hit zone in search of a new life in other cities.
"To return and live there seems very difficult as there is extensive damage. From now on, I would like to continue my life here and go to school in Ankara," Orcun Kabatas, a teenager from Hatay province, told Xinhua.
The 16-year-old earthquake victim was playing ping-pong with newly acquainted friends who are also from the disaster zone in a relief center of the capital city Ankara's Mamak district. The center is part of a residential complex of flats that is now home to around 3,500 earthquake survivors.
Furkan Kurt, a 14-year-old student from Adiyaman, another province hit by the catastrophe, said although he and his family members were not harmed by the tremors, the family of his cousin was killed under the rubble of their building.
"We do not want to return to Adiyaman because all houses have been destroyed, and there is nowhere to live there anymore," the boy said.
After a disaster of such scale, the boy still has his dream for the future as all young people have. "I want to go to school and become a police officer, and this is my biggest dream," he said.
According to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, at least 216,347 earthquake victims have been evacuated by the government to other cities following the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes that hit southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria on Feb 6.
But this number doesn't include hundreds of thousands of survivors who left the zone by their own means since the first day of the tragedy, to live with relatives or friends or to make do with urgent social assistance provided to them.
It is estimated that over two million people have scattered in towns like Mersin, Antalya, Izmir , Istanbul, and the capital city of Ankara.
(Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the report by ABP Live.)
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