ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - First responders who have led efforts in northwest Syria to rescue people from under the rubble caused by the February 6 twin earthquakes said the international assistance they have received comes nowhere close to meeting the enormous need in the war-torn, rebel-held territory. Mohammed Rasheed, a member of the White Helmets, told Rudaw on Friday that many humanitarian organisations have sent aid to the areas affected by the earthquakes, adding that the United Nations aid is "very little." "The aid is incomparable with what happened in Jindris," he noted.. More than 4,400 people were killed and another 8,100 injured in northwest Syria in the twin earthquakes that had their epicentres across the border in Turkey. More than 140 trucks of UN aid have been delivered to the rebel-held territory. The UN has appealed for $397.6 million to bring humanitarian assistance to 4.9 million people. The crisis is compounded by more than a decade of conflict and hardship that the millions of children, women, and men who live in northwest Syria have endured. "The situation in Syria is catastrophic," Fatima Sator, public relations officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in an interview with Rudaw TV on Friday. "We are talking about people who have been going through a conflict for the last 12 years. And not only did they have the conflict, but they also had to go through the COVID pandemic, and very recently we were still speaking about a cholera outbreak. They also had to go through an economic crisis. And now, there is, again, an earthquake happening," she said. "We're talking about people who are going through crisis after crisis. I can't even find the words to describe how devastated they are, the level of destruction, the level of loss they're witnessing." Prior to the earthquake, just one border crossing between Turkey and northwest Syria was open to humanitarian aid. The Syrian government in Damascus has said it would approve delivery of aid to rebel-held areas and the United States paused some sanctions for six months in order to not impede humanitarian access. Access to the devastated areas are key, Sator stressed. "Humanitarian access is vital to help civilians in need. And this has nothing to do with politics. Politics should be left out, out of this question right now. It's all about people. It's all about civilians who need help and we should leave politics aside." The ICRC with its partner the Syrian Red Crescent has sent medicines, food, shelter, mattresses, water, hygiene kits, and body bags, so far helping 30,000 people. The Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) said on Thursday that they had sent humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas, including fuel, adding that all the aid was allowed in except for fuel.
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