Earthquake aggravates plight of Syrian residents and civil war refugees

The strong earthquake that hit Turkey’s border with Syria this Monday (6) escalates the scenario of difficulties faced by millions of Syrians who still reside in their country and many of those who emigrated, largely to Turkish territory.

The tremor is part of a context of 12 years of civil war against the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad —a conflict that, according to the UN reported last June, has already killed more than 306,800 civilians— and, still, in one of the worst winters ever recorded in the country’s history.

The current winter season comes at a time of fuel and electricity shortages. Of about 14.6 million people in need of humanitarian aid, at least 6 million were subject to the effects of the weather, according to figures from UN teams.

Those most affected would be displaced from the conflict, living in temporary camps. There are risks of fires due to the use of firewood to keep warm; lighting in schools has become a challenge, impacting access to education; and has increased the risk of respiratory tract infections at the same time that some parts of the country, with blocked roads, prevent access to health services.

“Temperatures often drop below freezing in the most mountainous parts of the country, and the plains, in turn, are prone to flooding,” the UN’s local branch said in a recent statement.

“Syrians’ ability to survive has been further undermined by the continuing deterioration of the socio-economic situation, marked by the devaluation of the Syrian pound and the energy crisis.”

The long civil war is one of the most displaced conflicts in the world. There are more than 5.4 million refugees out of a population of 21 million, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. And of these, 64% —3.5 million— sought refuge in neighboring Turkey. There are still at least 6.8 million internally displaced people in Syria.

The region hit by the earthquake, between the Turkish provinces of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras, is home to one of the country’s refugee camps, Kahramanmaras, a kind of “container city” that reuses containers to house refugees.

The site can house up to 25,000 people temporarily. Last December, the Bloomberg news agency reported that at least 500,000 Syrian refugees would live in and around Gaziantep.

Romanian Dan Stoenescu, head of the European Union (EU) mission in Syria, drew attention to the matter. “Millions of Syrian refugees and internally displaced people live in camps and towns near the epicenter of the earthquake,” he wrote on Twitter in the morning.

There is no information on how many of the dead could be refugees or internally displaced people from the civil war, but observers warn that these people, in addition to being victims of the tremor, may have their living conditions even more deteriorated after the destruction of the urban centers.