Monitoring Desk
ALEPPO: The rescue phase in Turkiye and Syria after the major earthquake struck the countries a week ago, is “coming to a close” with urgency now switching to food, shelter, schooling and psychosocial care, said the UN aid chief during a visit to Syria Monday.
“What is the most striking here, is even in Aleppo, which has suffered so much these many years, this moment,” said Martin Griffiths from Aleppo, the government-held northwestern Syrian city, also a major frontline in the Syrian civil war.
The February 6 quake struck parts of the northwest Syria, a region partitioned by the 11 years long war, including the government areas controlled by President Bashar Assad and insurgent-held territory at the Turkish border.
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Griffiths said the UN would have aid moving from government-held regions to the rebel-held areas, a frontline across which aid has seldom passed during the civil war. Appeals for aid would be issued for all the regions hit by the earthquake, he said further. On Monday, the death toll in Syria jumped.
The UN said over 4,300 had been reported killed in the northwest, and more than 7,600 others injured. The toll in Syrian government stood at 1,414.
Griffiths said he heard traumatic accounts of the devastation from the survivors in Aleppo.
