UN inquiry commission: Quake aid was slow to reach Syria

GENEVA — The global neighborhood and the Syrian govt didn’t act briefly sufficient closing month to lend a hand folks in want within the rebel-held northwest after a dangerous earthquake hit Turkey and conflict-ravaged Syria, a U.N.-backed fee stated Monday.

The Feb. 6 magnitude 7.8 earthquake and powerful aftershocks that ravaged southern Turkey and northwestern Syria killed greater than 50,000 folks, together with over 6,000 in Syria.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria stated there must be an investigation into why it took per week to open border crossings for aid to go with the flow. It added that war-torn Syria “now needs a comprehensive cease-fire that is fully respected” for civilians, together with aid staff, to be secure.

The fee additionally stated there were new assaults in Syria, together with a reported Israeli airstrike closing week at the global airport of the northern town of Aleppo striking it out of carrier for 3 days. The airport has been a primary level for aid flowing into Syria and flights had been diverted to two different airports when it was closed.

The fee is made up of outdoor, unbiased mavens who’ve been running underneath a mandate from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council since just about the beginning of the Syrian clash in 2011.

It took per week for the U.N. and the federal government of Syria’s President Bashar Assad to agree on opening two extra border crossings into the rebel-held area bordering Turkey as many of us had been nonetheless underneath the rubble.

“Since the earthquake, we have seen many acts to help victims by the Syrians themselves,” fee member Paulo Pinheiro stated all over a news convention in Geneva. He added that “we also witnessed a complete failure by the government and the international community including United Nations to rapidly direct urgent lifesaving aid for northwest Syria.”

“Many days were lost without any aid to survivors of the earthquake,” Pinheiro stated. “Actors didn’t rapidly direct urgent lifesaving aid to northwest Syria which became the epicenter of neglect.”

A week after the earthquake, the U.N. announced that Syrian President Bashir Assad agreed to open for three months two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment to help earthquake victims. Before that, the U.N. had only been allowed to deliver aid to the northwest Idlib area through a single crossing at Bab Al-Hawa, at Syrian ally Russia’s insistence.

“They failed to deliver international emergency support including rescue teams and equipment in the vital first week after the earthquake,” Pinheiro said, adding that “Syrians, for good reasons, felt abandoned and neglected by those who (are) supposed to protect them in their most desperate time.”

“Many voices are rightly calling … for an investigation and accountability to understand how this failure, this disaster happened beyond the earthquake,” Pinheiro said.

Commissioner Hanny Megally said “it’s a shame that all the actors really involved have not been helping in this area and it is difficult of course without proper investigation to say who’s most responsible.”

The commission called on nations who have nationals held in the camps of al-Hol and Roj in northeast Syria to speed up the repatriation process. It said conditions are deteriorating at the camps that are housing some 56,000 mostly women and children linked to the Islamic State group.

“The suffering inflicted on them may amount to the war crime of committing outrages on personal dignity. We call again for repatriations to speed up,” the commission’s report said.

At the fenced camp of al-Hol, there are some 50,000 Syrians and Iraqis crowded into tents. Nearly 20,000 of them are children; most of the rest are the wives and widows of IS fighters. In a separate, heavily guarded section of al-Hol known as the annex are an additional 2,000 women from 57 other countries — they are considered the most die-hard IS supporters — along with their children, numbering about 8,000.

Some countries, including France, Spain, Russia and Iraq repatriated some of their citizens in recent months but many other countries still refuse.

“Health care is very limited, education is very limited and some of those children have no life apart from these awful conditions,” said commissioner Lynn Welchman. “These camps are horrendous places.”

___

Mroue reported from Beirut.