JINDIRES, Syria — At the site where a three-story building collapsed after a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Syria in February, a small tented camp has sprung up. Residents call it “the camp of the forgotten”.
Fatima al-Miree, 61, and her family of seven sleep in one of the tents, which during the day looks like a sauna. She stands outside her one-story house, which still stands next to the camp, but with cracks running menacingly up and down the walls. She said she had lost count of how many aid groups had arrived, photographed the damage, and left.
“We have not seen even five lira of them,” Al-Miree said. “We don’t have money to do the repairs ourselves. If we work, we eat. If we don’t work, we don’t eat”.
More than six months after a powerful earthquake struck northwestern Syria and southern Turkey, many of those affected in Syria feel forgotten: repairs have been limited and reconstruction almost non-existent. And while the death and destruction in neighboring Turkey was far greater, the recovery effort in Syria is more complicated.
According to the United Nations, In Syria, the earthquake killed more than 6,000 people, destroyed 10,000 buildings and left some 265,000 people homeless. And it also crossed the front lines of a 12-year war.
Millions of people living in the earthquake zone had fled the fighting and many were living in tents or other makeshift housing, depending on international aid, when another disaster struck. In July, a UN resolution allowing cross-border aid from Turkey expired, leaving much humanitarian aid in limbo. Global aid efforts have been hampered not only by territorial divisions but also by other obstacles stemming from the war, including international sanctions on the government, questions over property rights and a province controlled mostly by a group the US has designated a terrorist organization.
The largest aid donors to Syria – the United States and European countries – refuse to finance the reconstruction of the conflict until a political agreement is reached. The reluctance has extended to earthquake damage, aid organizations say.
One concern in towns like Jindires is that some of the houses destroyed by the quake belonged to families who had fled, many of them members of Syria’s Kurdish minority. In their place came members of the dominant ethnic group, the Syrian Arabs, fleeing from other parts of the country.
To avoid changing the demographics by building on the land of those who fled, aid groups have stayed away. According to the City Council, only about 40 percent of the inhabitants of Jindires are originally from there. Al-Miree and his family are among them.
Abdulrahman al-Aas and his family arrived in Jindires in 2019 after fleeing Harasta, a rebel stronghold near the capital Damascus, which was retaken by the government. They moved in with an aunt who was illegally in an apartment building under construction.
When the earthquake struck, Al-Aas, 27, said, he lost 36 members of his family in that building and others nearby, including his wife and three children. Only he and his brother survived. Al-Aas had a sandwich shop near his apartment. It was also destroyed.
Aid groups have begun to rehabilitate shops in the souk of the Center of the town. But the rents were $200 a month, something Al Aas didn’t have. He returned to the place where his apartment and store once stood and began to rebuild another home and business.
“Immediately after the earthquake, people were talking about reconstruction,” Al-Aas said. “But with the passage of time nobody says that anymore.”
RAJA ABDULRAHIM. THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6881256, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-09-06 19:50:07
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