The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, has agreed to open two border crossing points to allow in a greater volume of emergency aid for victims of the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, and killed 36,000 people.
Assad’s decision was announced and welcomed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who said the two crossing points between Turkey and north-west Syria, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, would be open “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid”.
Until Monday, the sole entry point to Syria’s rebel-controlled Idlib province had been through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. Previous efforts to open other humanitarian routes had been vetoed by Russia and China who had claimed such a movement without Assad’s consent would undermine the sovereignty of the regime in Damascus. Guterres announced Assad’s change of mind after a closed-door meeting of the UN security council on Monday afternoon.
“As the toll of the 6 February earthquake continues to mount, delivering food, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, winter supplies and other life-saving supplies to all the millions of people affected is of the utmost urgency,” Guterres said. “Opening these crossing points – along with facilitating humanitarian access, accelerating visa approvals, and easing travel between hubs – will allow more aid to go in, faster.”
The Turkish toll now exceeds the 31,643 killed in a quake in 1939, the country’s disaster and emergency management authority said. In Syria the death toll has reached 5,714 and millions of people are homeless through a combination of the earthquake and the long-running civil war, and the humanitarian situation is desperate with a severe need for aid in rebel-held northern areas.
In the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo, the UN’s head of emergency relief, Martin Griffiths, said the rescue phase was “coming to a close”, with the focus switching to shelter, food and schooling.
Search and rescue teams began to wind down their work on Monday as hopes of finding anyone alive faded, but there were cheers in Turkish cities when people were freed after seven days under the rubble, including a young girl named Miray in Adıyaman and a 12-year-old boy named Kaan in southern Hatay province.
In one dramatic rescue attempt in Kahramanmaraş, rescuers said they had contact with a grandmother, mother and baby trapped in a room in the remains of a three-storey building. Rescuers were digging a second tunnel to reach them, after a first route was blocked.
“I have a very strong feeling we are going to get them,” said Burcu Baldauf, the head of the Turkish voluntary healthcare team. “It’s already a miracle. After seven days, they are there with no water, no food and in good condition.”
But in many places the grief was still overwhelming as more bodies were found and relatives blamed the government for a slow response.
Residents and aid workers from several Turkish cities have also complained of worsening security in the devastated areas, while the authorities have been cracking down on social media accounts they said had “provocative” posts that spread fear and panic. Police said they detained 56 people on Monday.
Further complicating the delivery of aid in Syria has been the refusal of the hardline Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham group to receive aid sent via Damascus, despite warnings that survivors living outdoors in winter conditions are facing a secondary catastrophe.
Speaking shortly before the announcement of the new additional humanitarian crossing points, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said: “We’re a week into this and every single minute means one more life.”
“The numbers are ticking every single day. So we must act now,” Thomas-Greenfield told NBC News. “It is important that we show the Syrian people that we’re there for them, that we’re ready to provide them the assistance that they need.”
