A week on, amid the tears of the bereaved and the abandoned, the unbearable scale of the death and destruction has become horrifyingly clear. At least 35,000 people have died as a result of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, making this one of the worst natural disasters of the century. Hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped under rubble, as relatives pray for their miraculous survival. The final death toll may never be known. Many millions are displaced and some communities have been almost razed from the face of the earth.
In such appalling circumstances, it seems inconceivable that whole areas in the disaster zone should be left to their fate. But as the United Nations’ top humanitarian relief official, Martin Griffiths, said on Sunday, this is in effect what has been allowed to happen in north-west Syria, which is controlled by groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. A negligible amount of humanitarian aid has reached Idlib province, through the only open border crossing from Turkey.
As anger grows, Mr Griffiths described this as a “failure” on the part of the UN, which was both honest and an understatement. The earthquakes in this region have compounded the inordinate suffering of a population already blighted by civil war, airstrikes, absolute levels of poverty, collapsed infrastructure and a cholera epidemic. Basic resources to cope with any of these multiple crises are lacking. It is the duty of the international community to find a way to provide them. The alternative is a terrible secondary crisis of grotesque proportions. But in a region populated by bad actors, the question is how such a path can be negotiated.
The United States has called on Mr Assad to halt the weaponisation of aid and channel international assistance equitably to rebel-held areas. Rightly, Washington has, for its part, eased sanctions on Damascus to allow maximum humanitarian assistance to be offered. Europe should follow suit. But even if Mr Assad complies, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the hardline Islamist group that controls much of north-western Syria, is reportedly refusing to accept help from government-controlled areas.
The realpolitik of an adequate aid operation thus requires the reopening of all closed cross-border routes from Turkey. This has hitherto been vetoed by Mr Assad’s principal backer, Russia, at the UN security council. Vladimir Putin’s justification for this powerplay has been the protection of the principle of national sovereignty – a professed cause that will provoke mirthless laughter in Kyiv. If Moscow cannot be persuaded to revise its cynical position in light of events, the UN and western states should explore legal ways of circumventing the security council. But given Mr Assad’s brutal track record, without consent this route would come with risks attached.
Ultimately, skilful diplomacy and international pressure will be needed if entrenched divisions are to be overcome in the name of alleviating human misery. Disasters of this magnitude necessitate an appeal to universal values of human solidarity and cooperation that, at times, can transcend traditional enmities. The west bears a particular responsibility to make this case, having put Syria’s ongoing tragedy out of sight and out of mind in recent years. Among the desperate survivors in Idlib and elsewhere are those who have been turned back at European borders, met with barriers and barbed wire. Victims of war, dictatorship, extremism and now natural disaster, they require our belated support and will continue to need it for years to come.
