Aid Trickles in as Türkiye-Syria Quake Toll Passes 24,000
Arab World
Asharq Al-Awsat
International aid was trickling into parts of Türkiye and Syria on Saturday where rescuers toiled to pull children from rubble in areas devastated by a massive earthquake that has killed over 24,000 people. A winter freeze in the affected areas has hurt rescue efforts and compounded the suffering of millions of people, many in desperate need of aid. At least 870,000 people urgently needed food in the two countries after the quake, which has left up to 5.3 million people homeless in Syria alone, the UN warned. Aftershocks following Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor have added to the death toll and further upended the lives of survivors. The United Nations World Food Programme appealed for $77 million to provide food rations to at least 590,000 newly displaced people in Türkiye and 284,000 in Syria. Of those, 545,000 were internally displaced people and 45,000 were refugees, it said. The Syrian government said it had approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control. Only two aid convoys have crossed the border this week from Türkiye, where authorities are engaged in an even bigger quake relief operation of their own. Türkiye said it was working on opening two new routes into opposition-held parts of Syria. The winter freeze has left thousands of people either spending nights in their cars or huddling around makeshift fires that have become ubiquitous across the quake-hit region. Officials in Türkiye say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake. Officials and medics said 20,665 people had died in Türkiye and 3,553 in Syria. The confirmed total now stands at 24,218.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/4151426/aid-trickles-t%C3%BCrkiye-syria-quake-toll-passes-24000
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