The rubble of the earthquake which accumulate on bombing debris. People who dig with their bare hands because there are not even the means to extract the survivors. Or if there are, there is no petrol. Nameless children who officially never existed and whose death no one now knows about. And for those who are still alive, the awareness of being isolated and “forgotten”. Words or images are not enough to describe the tragedy that lives there Syria, devastated by thirteen years of civil war and now hit by the strongest earthquake of the last 800 years. Everything is missing: food, water, blankets, a roof where you can stop. It’s cold and sub-zero temperatures make it nearly impossible to camp outdoors. James Pizzicooperator of the NGO For the Holy Land he is among the very few internationals present on site. He told ilfattoquotidiano.it how they are coping with the emergency and, after the panic of the first hours, the difficulty in getting help (Fundraising here). Today the association, through the spokesman Andrea Avveduto, launched an appeal to ask for the end of the sanctions on the country: “The donations we have collected allow us to send aid to those who need basic assistance, but it is a very small drop and it is not enough. We sadly note the indifference of the international community to the plight of millions of people, often exploited for dynamics extraneous to local events. We ask that – if not stopped – at least the sanctions affecting Syria be eased, and no distinctions are made between the displaced people living under the Assad regime or the rebels“.
Where is Pizzi at the moment?
I’m on my way to Latakia. We checked a few situations in Aleppo. And we have to do the same in areas where people are more isolated. Many colleagues from Damascus have come to lend us a hand.
Does it help us understand what the situation is like?
The first two days immediately after the earthquake were truly one of panic and emergency reaction. And it’s not over yet. Even today I was walking the streets of Aleppo and passed a couple of buildings where people are still being searched. Here the biggest difficulty is the unavailability of resources on the part of the authorities. Digging with bare hands. For this reason it is difficult to intervene to save the survivors.
What is the most affected area?
In East Aleppo the situation of the buildings is very precarious and at risk of collapse at any moment. It was the most bombed area during the Syrian conflict, it is the martyr city that we all have in mind when we think of war. Yesterday there were some small aftershocks. Nothing to worry about, but this meant that there were still some collapses. Now, next to the rubble of war, there are those of the earthquake.
Are the crashes still going on?
Yesterday there was a whole building of people who had returned after the emergency thinking they were safe. But then there was a little jolt and it came down completely. We have the same problem for houses. And this morning I visited a hospital where around 3-400 people had arrived during the emergency, which suffered damage: you enter normally, the doctors and nurses can continue to do their job, but there is a part which is completely unusable. There is a staircase about to collapse. There are many buildings that have fallen, but many that remain standing. It will take time to verify them.
The number of victims is constantly updated.
The area of East Aleppo, which was very very poor, also has victims who have no name. Which are not remembered. Today we went for an inspection. There we have three reception centers for orphans or children of mothers who were raped when the area was occupied. There are about a thousand children who cannot get recognition and have never been regularized. They were born under the bombing and now, some of them died under the earthquake. For the authorities they didn’t even exist, we know that they exist. It was a project we had implemented to try to improve their living conditions. Theirs and those of the mothers who have suffered this type of violence, people who are unknown and placed on the margins of society. These projects will now have to be put on hold, because it’s like we’ve gone back years.
In addition to the victims, there are also displaced persons.
There are so many dramatic situations that we still don’t know about. We have a reception center at the Franciscan convent in the center of Aleppo. This morning a family arrived looking for diapers and who, in order to sleep outdoors, said they slept in a cemetery. It was the only open space in the area.
How many people are homeless?
There is talk of at least 30,000 displaced people throughout Syria. In our centers we currently welcome from 3 to 4 thousand. And there are 126 other centers where just as many are welcomed. There are 4,000 people who need to be fed, a place to sleep. And above all, since it’s minus four degrees, you have to cover them. Those who can will return to their homes tonight, while for the others it will be a long time before they return.
How do you help them?
The positive thing is that we have a canteen that has already been operational for two years. Because there was already no food before. And before that there was neither gas nor electricity. We opened the canteen because we saw that if we only gave out food parcels, people didn’t have the means to get themselves food. People in Syria, before the earthquake, lined up from 5 to 7 in the morning to get a ration of bread. Even before there was no water, increasing the risk of a cholera epidemic.
The country was already on its knees.
There is no electricity, no diesel or petrol. Inflation is very high. And this is due to a situation of very heavy sanctions that are imposed on Syria. And that do not allow for post-war measures to be taken. Because the war is still there, but in isolated parts of Syria. In places where you could start building again, you can’t because there isn’t the possibility. To give an example: when a person uses an international circuit to make or receive a payment and does not have a wpn activated (a private network connection ed) he cannot do it. This shows how much difficulty there is in getting aid to arrive.
The humanitarian tragedy has been going on for years and we have stopped talking about it.
In recent days the number of people who, seeing an international aid worker, thanked me for being there with them was moving. The big issue right now in Syria, when we are about to enter the 13th year since the beginning of the war, is that people feel completely forgotten because nobody talks about them anymore. The concrete need is at the moment really basic. It was even before the earthquake and also for people who weren’t poor. Without forgetting that all the specialized workers, who could give an extra gear, have left. Now for those who are left there is a lack of food, water and blankets. And then when we understand the extent of the damage, we will have to intervene to rebuild the houses.
*the video was shot by Giacomo Pizzi