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A year ago, devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria, killing tens of thousands of people. Two-thirds of the population of Idlib province, located in northwest Syria, was already living in precarious conditions before the earthquakes caused by the war. Survivors have not had sufficient access to much-needed humanitarian aid and local authorities have not begun promised reconstructions.
Most of the 6,000 Syrian victims of the February 6, 2023 earthquakes died in Idlib province. The Haroun family lost everything: their son and his house. For months they waited for help to find a new home, but this help never came.
“Many organizations came to see us, but none of them rebuilt the destroyed houses, no one helped us,” laments Amina, a disaster victim from the town of Azmarin. “We are so desperate that we ended up renting this house temporarily. In the middle of winter, we cannot survive in tents with the children,” she adds.
Idlib is one of the last rebel strongholds of the Syrian regime. The region has 4 million inhabitants but is difficult to access. Damascus authorities prevent the entry of humanitarian aid; This is arriving slowly from Türkiye, which is far from enough. As for local authorities, they have not started the promised reconstructions.
“What we are experiencing is tragic”
The local NGO Molham Volunteer Team is one of the actors that initiates rehousing projects for the population. This is the case of the city of Harem. “This project consists of 24 residential buildings with 352 apartments. We started it in August 2023 and we are trying to move forward as quickly as possible to be able to deliver the first homes on the first anniversary of the earthquake,” explains Mohamed Abdel Baqi, engineer.
This project is an exception. In the village of al-Hamziya, Muhammad Jumaa has been living in a tent for a year. This man lost 12 members of his family and his house in the earthquake. Like many other survivors, he has no means to find new accommodation.
“It's been a year since the earthquake and this is our situation. We still live in tents today. The organizations that came to the village helped restore some houses, but they did nothing for people like me, whose house was completely destroyed,” he confesses. “We are in tents or caravans, we are cornered by the mud and the cold. What we are experiencing is tragic,” she adds.
In Idlib, 800,000 displaced people were already living in makeshift camps before the disaster. Over the past year, around 100,000 more people have joined them, according to NGOs.
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