Aid deliveries to tens of thousands of Syrians caught up in this week’s earthquake are being hampered by wrangling between rival powers in the country’s more than decade-long war.
“The devastation from the earthquake is unimaginable,” United Nations’ Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen tweeted after a meeting of the Syria Humanitarian Task Force on Thursday, as he appealed to countries not to politicize the response. “This is about putting people first,” he said.
While supplies have flowed into heavily damaged regions of neighboring Turkey, in Syria the areas hit are mainly controlled by anti-government forces that President Bashar al Assad has been battling since 2011. That has raised tensions over aid provision that have embroiled Turkey, Russia and the U.S. and Europe amid longstanding international sanctions on Assad and his government for atrocities committed since the start of the conflict, leaving quake victims as pawns in the wider struggle over the Middle East state.
