The Norwegian Refugee Council is more power to halt human survival: The Hilton Prize gives the world’s largest annual humanitarian award for a nonprofit

Jan Egeland speaks in a calm manner but he gets more emotional when talking about the number of people who have been displaced because of humanitarian crises.

The Norwegian Refugee Council has helped those who have been affected by war in Ukraine, the earthquake in Afghanistan and the ongoing famine in Sudan this year alone.

In recognition of these efforts, the council this year has been awarded the world’s largest annual humanitarian award for a nonprofit — worth $2.5 million.

This award is important to us because we are challenged like never before. Our advocacy for civilians has led to us being targets by authoritarian regimes who do not want the truth to be told to the world. With the recognition and backing of the Hilton Prize we can do that with more authority and greater resources. It’s a huge amount of money, but it’s equally important as recognition and prestige. This is a prize for humanitarian work.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/10/20/1129199362/a-2-5-million-prize-gives-this-humanitarian-group-more-power-to-halt-human-suffe

Defending Refugees and Disdisplaced in Conflict Areas. The Norwegian Foreign Minister Hans Egeland (1946-present) in Somalia

Egeland is a former Norwegian foreign minister who held positions at Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross and the United Nations before becoming secretary general of the council. Upon returning from a trip to Somalia in June, he spoke with NPR about overlooked crises, equal protection for all refugees and reasons to hope.

We help refugees and displaced people in conflict areas. We were established in 1946 just after the liberation of Norway from Nazi occupation. At the time, Norway was a poor country receiving Marshall Aid assistance from the United States, but our founders saw that the situation was even worse for most of the rest of Europe. Our early relief efforts focused on refugees in Austria, Germany, Poland and the Balkans — and it grew from there. Field workers are involved in most of the biggest crises and wars of our time, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and everything in between.

We issue an annual report measuring the number of people in greatest need versus the corresponding international media coverage, money directed toward the crises and diplomatic efforts to halt hostilities. Last year the top 10 most neglected conflicts and displacement crises were in Africa. 25 million people are in need of food and medicine in the Democratic Republic-of-Congo, yet it gets little or no attention. For all of Africa, the same thing is true.

Media attention and funding is going to Ukrainian refugees. The Russian invasion was launched in February. What has changed for the Ukrainians?

The situation in Ukraine since the war in the Donbass is worse now than it was in the early days of the conflict. Some areas have become more stable where we are able to help the internally displaced, and Ukrainians are now returning from abroad after initially fleeing. At the same time, others continue to be driven out from the south and the east of the country. I fear for the winter. Millions will be freezing soon so we are preparing a winterization program and strengthening logistic lines from the neighboring states.

It’s a good thing we want to help our neighbor who looks like us, has the same religion and can integrate into our societies, but we should give protection according to need. In Europe people from the Middle East or Afghanistan are met with a cold shoulder and barbed wire whereas Ukrainians are welcomed. Women and children fleeing brutal violence in central America do not often receive well received in the U.S. This is a battle of values, and we must stand squarely on the side of those who need protection.

We live and breathe by the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. We teach our colleagues that they need to not get close to a government that isn’t in favor of the conflict. But at the same time, we still need to have the respect, and the protection, of those parties. We always try to work on all sides – it pains me that we’re not able to work in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

It is now over a year since the West left Afghanistan, leaving behind 40 million mainly women and children, and they need our solidarity now more than ever. The defacto authorities and the donor countries must engage on issues like girls’ education and minority protection. sanctions that do not take away food from Taliban soldiers but make women and children starve is the wrong response.

I’m afraid of that. A century ago, for the first time in recorded history, 100 million people had been displaced by war. It was 40 million in 2011. There has never been so many children going to bed hungry in modern times. We need some countries to recognize that while they are struggling with high energy prices and nationalistic tendencies at home, it is significantly worse in the areas where we operate.

It is truly dramatic. I saw mothers and fathers walking for hundreds of kilometers to seek water and food. We need development, investment, resilience and better use of existing resources. The groups of nine national and international NGOs created the Building Reinsurance Communities in Africa (BRCiS) to balance long-term community readiness with short-term humanitarian needs. I witnessed dams being built, and bore holes equipped with solar-powered pumps so people can start to feed themselves independently.

Join and support the international NGOs. Write to politicians to say we want to live by elementary rules of compassion and solidarity. Reach out to those refugees and migrants who come to our communities, befriend them, help them integrate.

It is a time of horrific contrasts. The world has never had so many people displaced by conflict and violence without having a place to live. Climate change, COVID and conflict have merged to create a lethal cocktail. The good news is that there have never been more effective national and international humanitarian and development organizations. Never have there been as many billionaires, so there should be a possibility for us to elevate the bottom two billion people. Those at the very top have astronomical resources and they alone could have helped us reach people in great need.

I come back an optimist whenever I return from visiting colleagues working in difficult and dangerous circumstances. In the past years, we have helped more than a million children go to school and when I ask them what they want to be when they get older, they want to be doctors, engineers, farmers and builders.

The Syrian earthquake of April 11, 2001, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Kahramanmaras, Turkey

Rescue crews pulled more survivors, including entire families, from the ruins of buildings on Saturday despite diminishing hope that anyone else was still alive in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria.

Remember: Almost 11 million people have been affected by the disaster in Syria, the UN said. The death toll in Syria stands at least 3,384, including 2,037 in rebel-held areas in the northwest, according to the “White Helmets” civil defense group – and 1,347 deaths in government-controlled parts of Syria, according to Syrian state media. According to authorities, more than 5,000 people have been injured.

In a visit to Kahramanmaras, a city near the epicenter of the quake, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to survivors, saying “we are face to face with a great disaster.” Erodgan admitted there were shortfalls by his government in the immediate aftermath of the quake, but said nobody would be “left in the streets.” The province of Hatay has been the worst-hit by the disaster.

My son is inside, I believe he’s still alive. She told NPR that the man’s brother dug to find him. Hours later, as diggers chipped away at the ruins of the building, rescuers found Sedat’s body and wrapped it in a blanket for his mother to say goodbye.

The earthquake-induced displacement of displaced people in Turkey follows Turkey’s recent decision to remove aid from the U.N. Earthquake

Even before this earthquake, the United Nations said 4.1 million people were in need of humanitarian aid. The Syrian regime considers bringing aid to these opposition-held areas across the border from Turkey a violation of its sovereignty. The government, along with its allies Russia and China, have repeatedly vetoed votes at the U.N. Security Council to maintain more aid routes into Syria from Turkey.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Russia are some of the countries that have offered Turkey relief after the earthquake.

Turkey’s emergency management agency, AFAD, reports it has set up more than 70,000 tents for emergency shelter to the more than 380,000 people who have been temporarily displaced by this disaster.

“Events like this are absolutely devastating, but they remind us of the importance of scientific research and putting that research into practice through building codes and retrofitting.” said Lindsay Davis, an earthquake disaster assistance team manager.

There are two major fault in Turkey: the North Anatolian Fault and the East Anatolian Fault. The plate that carries Arabia and Syria is moving northwards and is squeezing Turkey out to the west, according to a researcher at the Open University. In the last few years, Turkey has been moving to the west along the East Anatolian Fault. “Half the length of this fault is lit up now with earthquakes.”

In 1999, a magnitude-7.4 earthquake hit 11 kilometres southeast of Izmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving more than 250,000 homeless. Turkey introduced a compulsory earthquake insurance system after this tragedy. However, many of the buildings affected by this week’s quake were built before 2000, says Mustafa Erdik, a civil engineer at Boğaziçi University, Turkey.

Deaths in earthquakes are often caused by falling bricks and masonry. The US Geological Survey says that a lot of people who were affected by the earthquake in Turkey live in structures that are likely to be damaged by shaking, with unreinforced bricks and low-rise concrete frames.

Things are worse in Syria, where more than 11 years of conflict have made building standards impossible to enforce. The earthquake destroyed buildings in the northwestern regions of Syria. Some war-damaged buildings in Syria have been rebuilt using low-quality materials or “whatever materials are available”, says Rothery. “They might have fallen down more readily than things that were built at somewhat greater expense. We’ve yet to find out,” he adds.

“The weather forecast for the region for tonight is dropping below freezing. That means that the people who are trapped in the rubble and might be saved are likely to die. These dangers continue, he says.

DUBAI — In a dusty, industrial corner of Dubai, far from the city’s gleaming skyscrapers and marbled buildings, boxes of child-sized body bags are stacked in a massive warehouse. They will be shipped to the earthquake victims in Turkey.

The World Health Organization is not able to reach all of the people in need. But from its global logistics hub in Dubai, the U.N. agency tasked with international public health has already loaded two planes with critical medical supplies, enough to help some 70,000 people. There are two planes destined for Turkey and Syria.

Color-coded labels help identify which kits are for malaria, cholera, Ebola and polio for countries in need around the world. Green labels are reserved for emergency health kits — those for Istanbul and Damascus.

The WHO used trauma and emergency surgery kits in their response to the earthquake.

Before joining the WHO he was a firefighter in California and later worked in the Foreign Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He says the organization is facing immense logistical challenges reaching victims of the earthquake, but their Dubai warehouses help deliver aid rapidly to countries in need.

Our volunteers from the White Helmets work around the clock, pulling survivors from the rubble and searching for signs of life in northwest Syria, with virtually no outside help.

The current weather conditions are not good. So it just depends on the condition of the roads, the availability of the trucks and then the permission to cross the border and deliver the humanitarian aid,” he says.

The International Humanitarian City (IHOC): A humanitarian hub in the middle east and the wake of the earthquake, a humanitarian worker in Syria

“They’re not able to go home because their homes have not been cleared by an engineer as being structurally sound,” Blanchard says. “They’re literally sleeping and living in the office and trying to do work at the same time.”

The WHO’s warehouses are part of a 1.5 million square-ft. zone of Dubai known as International Humanitarian City, the largest humanitarian hub in the world. The UN, the Red Cross and other organizations have warehouses in the zone.

Storage facilities, utilities and flights to carry relief items to affected areas are covered by the government. The inventory was procured by the agencies.

Saba says $150 million worth of emergency stock and assistance is dispatched every year to between 120 and 150 countries. That includes personal protective equipment, tents, food and other critical items needed in climate disasters, medical emergencies and global outbreaks, like the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The reason we are doing quite a lot and the reason why this hub became the largest one in the world is exactly because of its strategic position,” Saba says. “From Dubai, in a few hours’ flight, you can serve two-thirds of the world’s population living in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa.”

The WHO supplies for Damascus were still grounded as of Wednesday evening due to a malfunctioning plane’s engine. Blanchard says the organization is trying for direct flights to Syria’s government-controlled airport in Aleppo, a situation he describes as “evolving by the hour.”

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Analysts warned that the Syrians may become hostages of the politics that have divided the country for more than a decade in the wake of the earthquake.

“It’s a crisis within a crisis,” says Leena Zahra, a Syrian American and humanitarian worker focused on increasing mental health access to globally displaced people. “This tragedy will impact children, entire families, some that have been displaced over 20 times. It will add on to the psychological impact they have already faced.

Turkey has been a NATO member for years, and its stature has grown recently. Syria is ruled by many different groups. Its regime, internationally sidelined and heavily sanctioned due to its brutal suppression of an uprising there that started in 2011, counts Iran and Russia as its closest allies – both global pariahs.

The Syrian regime is shunned by most Western countries. As the region welcomes him back into the fold, leader Bashar al- Assad has begun to forge ties with his former enemies. Last year, the United Arab Emirates welcomed Assad in Abu Dhabi, and last month Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the pair may soon meet for peace talks.

The US has been involved in the situation in Syria for a long time, Mao said. “The frequent military interventions and harsh economic sanctions have caused massive civilian casualties in Syria and made it difficult for the people to obtain basic livelihood security.”

Activists and observers are concerned that the regime might hamper relief efforts in rebel-held areas where many women and children are affected by earthquakes.

International aid has been slow in arriving in rebel-held parts of Syria due to years of conflict and an already existing humanitarian crisis that makes it hard for survivors who lack food, shelter and medicine to survive.

Madevi Sun-Suon told CNN that they are exploring all avenues to reach people in need. The road issue is a big challenge at the moment and we do have aid.

The Saudi-Belarus Dialogue in 2021: Saudi-Bahamian Cosmic-Grand Unification Revisited

But the Syrian government says it needs more – and has called for sanctions placed on the country to be lifted. A number of Western countries have imposed bans on trade with Syria, including weapons, equipment, petrochemicals and luxury goods.

In November, a UN human rights expert told the UN that it’s time to lift the sanctions against Syria.

Ned Price, a US State Department spokesman, said that reaching out to a government that has brutalized its people would be counter-productive.

The sanctions situation would be game changing if they were dropped, so the regime makes that argument at a good time.

Background: In May, Iran’s army gave details about another underground base, which houses drones, constructed as the country seeks to protect military assets from potential air strikes by regional arch foe Israel.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he was ready to restart the negotiations over Sweden’s application to become a NATO member if Turkey decided to join.

Background: Finland and Sweden sought NATO membership shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, and while most member states have ratified the applications, Turkey has yet to give its approval in what must be a unanimous process. Turkey last week said it looks positively on Finland’s application, but does not support Sweden’s, even though the two Nordic neighbors are seeking to join at the same time.

Last year, the three countries reached an agreement on a way forward, but Ankara suspended talks last month due to the protest in Sweden that led to the burning of a Quran. Turkey will go to elections in May.

The move comes amid an apparent thaw in relations. Bahrain’s crown prince spoke with Qatar’s emir in a phone call last month, in a sign the two Gulf states could move towards repairing relations two years after the Arab boycott was lifted. The conversation came after the Qatari emir and Bahrain’s king attended a small Arab summit hosted by the UAE’s president in Abu Dhabi.

Background: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt ended a three-year political and economic boycott of Qatar in January 2021. But since then there have been no bilateral discussions between Doha and Manama to resolve remaining differences. All but Bahrain restored travel and trade links in 2021.

The suspension of a Twitter account that sends out inappropriate snippets from the Quran, and consequences for the Syrian crisis in Syria

A account that had over 13 million followers on the social network was taken down after it was found to be sending out inappropriate snippets from the Quran.

One user addressed Musk, saying: “I don’t think it violated the Twitter rules because its tweets are quoted from the Holy Quran. We demand the lifting of the suspension of this account.”

Some users were ok with the suspension. The Quranic verses that are taken out of context and changed the meaning of the text were decried by some.

The account owner appears to run sister accounts in English, French and German, on which it posts translations of Quranic verses. The account that shows Quranic videos is campaigning to have the original account unblocked.

The situation for the people affected by the disaster in Syria is getting worse as fresh snowfall reduces visibility, according to the UN.

The trucks are carrying everything from essential medicines to tents to winter clothes, according to Jens Laerke. They crossed through the border gates of Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam, he said.

The delivery ended a three-day period during which no aid arrived – just 300 bodies, according to the administration that controls the only access point between the two countries.

The UN said the roads to the crossing were blocked, but as of Wednesday they were clear.

Doctors without Borders and the Idlib city: Bringing Aid to a Syrian Enclave under Threat at the Nuclear Nuclear Nuclear Cross-Bridge

Abu Muhammad Sakhour, a former merchant, is volunteering as a nurse in the rebel-held city of Idlib, dressing wounds for quake victims and checking up on the injured who have been discharged from crowded hospitals.

At the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, protesters hold signs asking why only bodies are being allowed through. The bodies of Syrians who sought safety in Turkey are being sent back to their homeland to be buried.

Muhammad Munther Atqi, from the Independent Doctor’s Association, is living out of his car with his family in Gaziantep, Turkey, but is in close contact with colleagues in Syria. He said hospitals there have been overwhelmed with bodies, and staff are waiting for families to come and identify them, so they can be taken away.

But survivors are facing their own challenges each day as water supplies dwindle and disease threatens to spread. Moutaz Adham, Oxfam’s country director for Syria, said residents are struggling to find food – even bread is hard to come by because so many bakeries collapsed in the quake.

Sherwan Qasem, spokesperson with Doctors without Borders, said access to the area had been restricted by the cross-border mechanism, agreed by the UN Security Council resolution in 2014 to allow aid to cross four places on the Turkey-Syria border.

Russia and China have been able to reduce the number of Bab al-Hawa crossings by using their veto power. In January, less than one month before the quake, the UNSC unanimously voted to keep it open, a vote reluctantly backed by China and Russia, whose ambassador said it enabled aid to flow to a Syrian enclave “inundated with terrorists.”

“We don’t need the politics. We don’t need the game playing that’s going on. What we do need is for the international community to focus on the border crossing staying open,” Barnes added. Now that we are past the first phase of finding people we are going into the humanitarian phase. basic shelter, food, and water are needed by people.

A humanitarian crisis in Syria is a ticket to remove sanctions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Humanitarian Research in Deir Ezzor 24

The U.N. says that humanitarian groups helped 16 million people in Ukraine last year. In order to prop up the battered national economy, more than one-third of them received cash assistance.

An aid worker distributing supplies across cities in northern Syria told CNN on Thursday that homeless people have been sleeping in their cars amid a “very, very difficult,” situation.

“He is using the disaster as a ticket to remove sanctions,” said Omar Abu Layla, executive director of Deir Ezzor 24, a research organization that delivers news from Syria’s Deir al-Zour province. We can bring aid to Syria if we want to. Time is critical. We are playing with life and death.”

Ozel says it’s not just a “near-total incompetence on preparedness on the part of the government” in responding to this week’s earthquake. “If that were even possible, the government would also be making it nearly impossible for other organizations, civil society, citizens themselves, and mayors and municipalities to help”, he says.

Where does your next meal come from? The situation of reconstruction in Turkey after the 2010 September 11 earthquake: How many rescues do we need in the next five years?

Meanwhile, “Syrians don’t know where their next meal comes from. When we say meal, it’s not about vegetables, not about meat… Moutaza Adham, country director for Syria for the aid organization, said it was about simple bread.

This is made even more important by the fact that international teams take 24 to 48 hours to arrive, Lanning said. There are not many local search and rescue teams on the ground to respond to collapsed buildings.

The Istanbul stock exchange closed after a circuit breaker kicked in when initial trading showed rapid decline. Turkey’s economy was already hard hit by inflation.

A week has passed since the earthquake but people are still flooding Al-Dahhan with traumatizing stories from the ground.

The world knows of these rescues because of Karam Kellieh, a resident and photojournalist who lives in the opposition-controlled territory. The area has 4 million people that were displaced by the Syrian civil war. Even before the earthquake, the area was devastated by bombs and poverty. Politics and the Syrian government were obstacles to aid.

“Humanitarian aid and international aid haven’t appeared 72 hours after the catastrophic earthquake,” he said, describing the little help that is trickling into the region as a haphazard grassroots effort by individual groups.

We will have months and months of work in the aftermath of this crisis. People who’ve been injured and people with psychological stress, ruined hospitals, collapsed schools. ,” he says. “This is the hardest part.”

Our hope of finding survivors has diminished. My heart is broken for every soul that was saved and wasted because we didn’t get the help we needed in time.

Only five percent of reported sites in north-west Syria are covered by search and rescue, according to a report.

The 2007 Istanbul Earthquake Tax: Why is Turkey’s Prime Minister Receiving?” said Ozel, a High School Student

Ozel points out that the funds meant for natural disasters were spent on highway construction by associates of the Erdogan government.

In 1999 there was an earthquake in Turkey which killed more than 18,000 people and resulted in an earthquake tax.

Erdogan’s centralization of Turkey’s government has meant a plethora of restrictions on how individual cities and aid organizations can operate in the country, hampering overall rescue efforts. (Turkey’s embassies, meanwhile, along with an array of nongovernmental organizations and cultural associations, are collecting donations internationally.)

According to Ozel, the upcoming election in Turkey will weaken Prime Minister Erdogan because of inflation. “I would expect the government to actually be one of the victims under the rubble of this earthquake,” Ozel predicts.

An 18-year-old high school student, Emrihan Korkmaz, has been working on the aid effort for three days. Schools have been ordered closed to mourn victims of the earthquake and so that people like Korkmaz can help out.

18 semitrucks have been loaded and sent to the earthquake zone. He puts a box under the banner with the image of Erdogan hanging from the ceiling and says there is an urgent need for food. “However we can get it to them, it doesn’t matter. People there need to eat.

As far as I know, the government has done what it can to help the victims. This is not a time to talk about politics — it’s a time to help people who need it.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the challenge of the cold weather: A research guideline for nonprofits based on IRS tax-deductible contributions

The scale of the challenge is made worse by the fact that Turkey and Syria are facing chilly temperatures. The Syrian city of Aleppo is forecast to have lows of -2C to 28F through this weekend, while February lows are usually 2.5C.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad criticized Western countries in his first televised comments since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck parts of the country five days ago, Syrian state media showed.

The hospital where the injured victims of the earthquake were hospitalized is a base for the support for the Syrian leader.

The delivery of urgent supplies to areas in northern Syria that have been hit by earthquakes has had difficulties because of the civil war in the country. Any aid that it receives must go through Damascus, says the Syrian Foreign Minister.

Despite donations pouring in from all over the world, many survivors have been left homeless due to a lack of access to basic necessities.

Before you make a donation, especially to a lesser-known organization, you should do some research to make sure it is reputable. Charity Navigator and Guidestar grade nonprofits based on transparency and effectiveness. The Internal Revenue Service also allows you to search its database to find out whether an organization is eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.

If you suspect fraud, you can report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud, which is part of the Justice Department.

Mohammed Juma in the Ruins of Jinderis, Syria – a Trapped Family with No Access to Basic Services

Global Giving, which helps local nonprofit agencies, is collecting donations to help fund emergency medical workers’ ability to provide food, shelter and medicine, among other necessities. The organization said it would focus on long-term assistance as needs change.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is requesting donations for its Disaster Response Emergency Fund so it can send “immediate cash assistance.”

OXFAM, an international organization that fights poverty, is working with women’s cooperatives in Turkey to determine an appropriate immediate and long-term response plan. It’s accepting donations.

CARE, an organization that works with poor communities, is asking for donations that will go toward items like food, shelter and hygiene kits.

The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations has provided medical relief to Syrian refugees in Turkey and inside Syria, and is collecting money.

JINDERIS, Syria — Mohammed Juma sleeps on the heap of rubble that crushed his family as he survived. In the freezing nights, the 20-year-old and others in this town — still dazed and in shock — burn possessions found in the debris for heat.

In the northwest of Syria, the screams of those trapped under the rubble could be heard by the residents, but they lacked the right equipment and machinery to save them.

Mohammed Juma said that his wife and two children were alive after their home collapsed on top of them. Juma and his neighbors pulled at the shattered concrete for hours until their hands bled, but the effort was futile.

The civil defense teams in Syria have been using small excavators to recover the dead. At most 850 bodies were found in the rubble of Jinderis on Friday. He was killed by the falling debris after he laid his son to sleep in his bed. Tabakh’s wife died in the bed beside him. He said that few friends were able to come to the burial because they were too busy burying their own loved ones.

They’ve been left without anything after many years of war. Tens of thousands now live with almost no access to basic services in makeshift tents set up in the olive groves where the mud clogs and weighs down the legs of children playing outside.

Sawran is less than an hour’s drive from a border crossing and has no running water. On one side of the main street is the destroyed home of the Turki family, where nine people, including five children died. Across the road a family of seven were killed. In the wake of the Syrian government’s use of the nerve agent sarin, neighbors said they moved to Sawran.

In 133 hours after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Kahramanmaras, dramatic rescues were being broadcast on Turkish television. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.

In the afternoon there was a rescue of a family from a mound of debris in Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “God is Great!” The last family member to be lifted to safety was the father.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Dead-Toll Survivors in Islahiye, Hatay, Gaziantep Province

“In some parts of our settlements close to the fault line, we can say that almost no stone was left standing,” he said earlier Saturday from Diyarbakir.

A woman in her 20s was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 131st hour of the earthquake, after the rescue of another person at the site. Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She had a blanket over her on the stretcher. Rescuers were hugging. Some shouted “God is great!”

A 3-year-old girl and her father and a 7-year-old girl were pulled from debris within an hour in the town of Islahiye, Gaziantep province, and less than an hour later in the province of Hatay.

Thousands were killed and tens of thousands were injured in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershock that struck the area days later, leaving millions homeless.

Not everything ended well. Rescuers reached a 13-year-old girl inside the debris of a collapsed building in Hatay province early Saturday and intubated her. She died before the medical teams could remove her limb and save her from the rubble.

The Indian Army’s medical assistance team started treating injured in a temporary field hospital in the southern city of Iskenderun as aid continued to arrive.

Wincing in pain, he said he had been rescued from his collapsed apartment building in the nearby city of Antakya within hours of the quake on Monday. He was released without proper treatment for his injuries after he received basic first aid.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156313344/turkey-syria-earthquake-death-toll-survivors

The Canbulat-Morse cemetery in Antakya, Turkey, last night: Security threat and mental health support for earthquake victims in Syria

″I buried (everyone that I lost), then I came here,” Canbulat said, counting his dead relatives: “My daughter is dead, my sibling died, my aunt and her daughter died, and the wife of her son” who was 8 ½ months pregnant.

A large makeshift graveyard was under construction on the outskirts of Antakya on Saturday. The field on the northeastern edge of the city was dug by bulldozers and backhoes as ambulances and trucks made their way into the area. Soldiers directing traffic on a busy road told motorists not to take pictures.

A worker for Turkey’s ministry of religious affairs said that around 800 bodies were brought to the cemetery on Friday the first day it was open, but that he didn’t want to speak to the media. By midday on Saturday, he said, as many as 2,000 had been buried.

“People who are coming out from the rubble now, it’s a miracle if they survive. He said that the majority of the people who come out now are dead.

The White Helmets said that the total number of dead would rise much higher after the end of their search and rescue operations.

German rescue operations in Turkey, which were halted on Saturday due to security concerns, “in general” remain suspended for these reasons, the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) told CNN on Sunday.

The group United Hatzalah said on Sunday that it would be leaving Turkey after six days due to a security threat.

The United Hatzalah and Dov Maisel said in a statement they had received intelligence of an immediate threat against the Israeli delegation and they had to put the security of their personnel first.

The team was sent to Turkey because they knew that it was near the Syrian border and that they had to take precautions to make sure they wouldn’t be injured.

Turkish rescue workers are working with a rescue dog handler from the Austrians, and Turkish forces are providing security in the search areas.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that it was the first group to send a team to provide mental-health support to earthquake victims in Syria. The team of Palestinians, along with local volunteers, is providing mental health services to about 300 children and their families in shelters and hospitals, who are suffering from severe trauma and depression as a result of the earthquake.

“Difficult times have been experienced by children since the earthquake. The psychological support teams of the Palestinians Red Crescent are trying to help them cope with their psychological problems after some of them miraculously escaped death.

The voice messages he’s received chronicling their pain make it impossible to sleep, he says. He sleeps as he is haunted by their cries. Thousands of people are still buried under rubble in Syria, and he is worried that he will die while resting.

“It’s destroying me,” Al-Dahhan, 31, told CNN. “When it happened, I was receiving constant voice messages, jumping from number to number on WhatsApp, each one is someone crying, telling me they are seeing people dying around them. I can never stop listening to them.

As Al-Dahhan travels to raise money in person, Alsamman is using social media, so far raising over $1,000 for reputable international organizations on the ground and 10 food boxes that were delivered directly to those affected.

The workers who survived have been in a race against the clock to help those who are still trapped under the rubble.

Since the earthquake, Al-Dahhan says he has not properly eaten and can’t sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time, the exhaustion evident in his voice.

“At least I get a little bit of relief, knowing what I’m doing matters, because the more I can fundraise here, the more it helps out there,” he said. I need to keep going because I am in constant stress and I am not doing enough. I feel guilty when I sleep. I don’t want to be awake for long. I need to be working. I want to get more updates. I feel like I am doing my job, but my mind and soul are not there.

The story of a Syrian family lost to a heart attack: Do I matter as much or will I be forgotten again? Syrian-american earthquakeraise money rescue relief

Another story is about a family that lost two sisters in the earthquake, leaving their children orphaned. When their brother learned of his sisters’ deaths, Al-Dahhan says, he suffered a heart attack from the shock and died – also leaving his children fatherless.

“My mind started racing and I immediately thought it was an Israeli airstrike, since we have had a few of those in Latakia over the past few years,” Alsamman, 27, told CNN. I wish the earthquake had only been an airstrike because I saw reports of it in the middle of the night.

He spent the next hours in agony watching the images of death and destruction on his phone, unable to see if his friends and family were still alive.

“It felt like no one was there for them, no aid was coming through, the only organizations able to provide aid were the ones already there,” Al-Dahhan said.

As the clock ticked, the opportunity to rescue survivors decreased, igniting panicked efforts from Syrians in the US like Alsamman and Al-Dahhan to raise as much money as possible for organizations on the ground.

Following the civil war in Syria that started in 2011, Nour Ghraowi moved to New York City to work as a communications assistant for the Karam Foundation.

Even though the world has been quiet, some organizations and people who have always been fighting for them, are still fighting for them.

The northwest area of the country has been the scene of most of the casualties in the civil war which the UN estimates to have claimed 300,000 lives.

Zahra emphasizes the need for immediate needs, including food and shelter, but also says that providing mental-health care is critical for Syrians.

She says that feeling abandoned and forgotten is one of the biggest issues that Syrians face when it comes to mental health issues.

“It’s only natural to have that reinforcement of asking themselves, ‘Do I matter as much or will I be forgotten again?’” she added. Will I be a statistic or an undignified picture that is not humanized?

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/us/syrian-american-earthquake-raise-money-rescue-relief/index.html

Is it Too Late for Syria? The Syrians need your help, but what can they don’t know about us? A grieving father of a wounded child

Some, including Al-Dahhan, have experienced psychological triggers, including photos and videos of buildings toppling during the earthquake, scenes nearly identical to the aftermath of airstrikes that have killed and displaced thousands during the war.

years ago I built a wall because of the war. I didn’t want to get hurt like that again- Al-Dahhan “But with this earthquake, I feel those walls crumbling. I am remembering things I don’t want to remember, and I can’t think of anything else.

Others, like Zahra and Alsamman, say they are struggling with survivor’s guilt, possessed with a relentless, sinking feeling that no matter how much they help it won’t be enough.

“Don’t move on and forget about us,” he begged. “In three weeks, when it isn’t as trendy to post and talk about Syria, know that the people of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, and Hama don’t have the option of moving on.”

We can not afford to heal those wounds because we don’t have enough time, please don’t get distracted, please donate, please help.

The White Helmets: Helping a homeless person in Syria to find a safe home in the aftermath of a disaster-torque

The hope of finding survivors faded as the building fell, so the workers searched for bodies across the street. A niece and nephew of Ms. Omac’s husband were under the debris. She was waiting for the rescuers to pull their relatives out, alive or dead.

Many people cobbled debris together to erect what they could: One family, numbering about a dozen, built a shelter of cardboard and tarp over a flatbed truck, with blankets and thin mattresses in the beds.

Turkish media reported that there was a shortage of temporary housing and poor sanitary conditions for homeless people and that the Turkish Red Crescent was speeding up production of tents to house them.

The United Nations aid chief said during his visit to the north of Syria that the rescue phase of the response was nearing an end.

Editor’s Note: Raed Al Saleh is head of The White Helmets, a group of nearly 3,000 volunteers working to save lives and strengthen communities in Syria. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.

We are the only organization here with the equipment and training to undertake heavy search and rescue. The volunteers have been doing the impossible, and I am humbled by their selflessness and dedication.

The Syrian Civil Defense Group’s White Helmets: Search and Rescue in the Kahramanmaras Scenario after a TeV Earthquake

Griffiths told Sky News over the weekend that the UN was asking the Security Council to authorize aid access through two additional border crossings, a misguided approach that wasted precious time. Legal analysts and scholars have argued against it, and humanitarian organizations say the need is too high for aid entry to be politicized.

The United Nations needs to do better. Something is clearly broken if the very system that was set up to protect and save human lives during an emergency leaves children to die under the rubble as precious minutes and hours pass.

As we searched through the rubble of thousands of buildings, it was the local affected communities that helped us most: lending their cars and heavy vehicles to the response, helping to dig, and donating fuel they could have used to keep themselves warm.

Rescue teams in southern Turkey say they are still hearing voices from under the rubble more than a week after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, offering a glimmer of hope of finding more survivors.

Rescuers are trying to save three sisters who are believed to be buried under some debris in two different areas of the Kahramanmaras region.

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old boy and a man were pulled out of the rubble, two days after a 10-year old girl was pulled alive from the rubble.

Eight days after the tremor and its violent aftershocks, more than 36,000 people have been confirmed dead and survival stories are becoming few and far between.

The Syrian Civil Defense group, better known as the “White Helmets,” declared a weeklong mourning period in rebel-controlled areas in the north of the country after ending their search and rescue operation last week.

On Monday, the UN said it welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s decision to open two more border crossings between Turkey and Syria to allow aid into the north of the country.

Turkey’s Vice President denied reports of food and aid shortages. There were “no problems with feeding the public” and “millions of blankets are being sent to all areas,” he said on live television.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said more than 9,200 foreign personnel are taking part in the country’s search and rescue operations, while 100 countries have offered help so far.

Some 4.2 million refugees have escaped to 10 countries in central and eastern Europe, and the refugee agency is looking for a large amount of money to help them.

More than 3 billion dollars of the joint appeal is going toward the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which will be used to help more than 11 million people.

A similar appeal since the war began, which drew funds from Western countries, could also be a factor in the joint appeal. Such U.N. appeals rarely get fully funded.

“We were relatively well-funded last year,” said Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “I think the refugee appeal was funded in excess of 70% — not total, but quite good. We count on that to last.”

“Of course, this is not the only crisis in the world,” Grandi added. I’m just back from a trip to Ethiopia, and there are many other people that deserve it. Who talks about the country of Burundi? Sorry, but this is reality and people need support as much as anywhere else.

The Community Emergency Response Team: teaching people how to survive in the immediate aftermath of a major earthquake in Turkey and announcing lessons lessons and reminders for disaster-resurgence

In the immediate aftermath of a devastating earthquake, where someone is trapped in their collapsed home or office building and waiting for help, it’s likely that the first people to help won’t be trained professionals.

Spreading that awareness, and training people to respond when official rescuers aren’t able to do so, are among the measures emergency response experts say are essential to saving the most lives in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

The window of opportunity to save people under collapsed buildings will start to close fast by the time you get around four or five days, according to Lanning.

Natalie Simpson is a professor and chair of operations management and strategy, at the University at Buffalo School of Management.

Lanning said it would take a long time to listen and remove pieces of the debris from each building. There are thousands and thousands of these buildings in Turkey.

The Community Emergency Response Team was developed in the United States to help locals in need. FEMA training volunteers across the country with basic disaster response skills.

It teaches people what to do after a major earthquake, where to get water after an emergency, how to check on immobile neighbors, and how to search collapsed buildings, Lanning said.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1156636019/the-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria-offers-lessons-and-reminders-for-disaster-res

The Earthquake in Turkey and its Impact on the Continuum Infrastructure of the Middle East: A Report from the University of Buffalo General Relativity

There are factors that can affect how likely a trapped person is to survive. He noted that if a trapped individual is uninjured or has minor injuries, they can last up to a week under a collapsed building.

Simpson with the University at Buffalo would like for the disaster to cause an immediate deployment of rescue crews and military. She said it wasn’t always the case in Turkey and Syria.

The Turkish government is under fire for its response. The first day we experienced some irritations, but by the second and third days the situation had been brought under control according to the president.

“The single, biggest failure point in emergency response is failure to pick up on the fact that this is an emergency,” Simpson said. The instinct is to wait to get more information.

“With all the emergencies you’re not in Kansas anymore,” she said. “These conditions are not normal, we fall into one of the traps, which is ‘oh God, what’s the best thing to do at this moment?’,” he said. It’s all good. Let’s get moving.”

In many areas around the world, including Turkey, the military is best equipped to operate in a disaster-transformed landscape and to open airstrips to get aid in quickly, she said.

The Middle East Institute found that the Turkish government didn’t immediately mobilize its military to aid in rescue efforts or to set up field hospitals.

She pointed out that it’s never too early to begin your large-scale response when you don’t have any information from a region. “I think that that will make an impression on decision-makers elsewhere, that will actually help people in the future.”

Lanning said this latest disaster hammers home how important it is for global communities in earthquake-prone areas to strengthen infrastructure to withstand a disaster like the one in Turkey and Syria.

“A lot of the damage there is because of the type of construction and type of buildings,” which is mostly concrete, said Lanning, who has worked for 15 years in various earthquake-prone areas of the world.

This is despite the knowledge that concrete buildings are not the best at withstanding earthquakes. They are very easy to construct and can easily hide imperfections, he said.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1156636019/the-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria-offers-lessons-and-reminders-for-disaster-res

The Emergency Medical Services of the Turkey and Syria following the Second Day of the Erdos Eleven-Day Seilertequannock Epicenter

What went wrong in the latest disaster is going to be analyzed in the coming months and years. But it’s incredibly valuable work, Lanning said.

Is my mother and everyone alive? The man on the stretcher is on the phone. Crying in disbelief, his friend replies: “Everyone is well… they are all waiting for you… I am coming to you.”

The rescue of the man from the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay province, who was 33 years old, was the emotional exchange that followed.

On Friday, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca released a video showing the phone call between Avci and his friend, in a powerful reminder that even now – 11 days after the quake struck – finding survivors against the odds remains possible.

The rescue of Avci late on Thursday night came as the death toll across Turkey and Syria rose to at least 43,885 people, according to official figures.

In the video, Avci can be seen wearing a neck brace and appears wide-eyed with hope as he asks: “Did everyone escape okay…? If for a moment, let me hear their voices.

Koca, the minister, said both Avci and a second man, Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, were rescued around the same time from under the ruins of a private hospital building.

Aydinli said he thought his fellow rescue workers were “hallucinating,” and he assumed the boy had “died with his eyes open.” But the child exclaimed, ‘Brother!’ I don’t feel legs. Save me!”

“Even now, we get tears in our eyes from time to time,” Aydinli said, referring to the boy’s rescue. He is alert and well-equipped. Hopefully, he will get better.”

A lot of lives have been saved, a lot of people were pulled from the rubble by their friends and family. Frontline health workers have done amazing work in both countries,” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emergencies director, Mike Ryan, told a briefing in Geneva on Wednesday.

Rescuers were called to remove a survivor from a collapsed building in the district of Defne on Friday, more than 11 days after the powerful earthquake struck.

According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, he spent nearly 300 hours under the rubble. TV footage showed him on a stretcher and going to an ambulance.

Neslihan Kilic, a 29-year-old mother of two, was removed from the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras, after being trapped for 258 hours, private DHA news agency reported late Thursday.

The United Nations’ humanitarian response to the Syrian earthquakes: Syria lost attention and will need international assistance in the coming era of emergency response in Turkey

The UN food organization is working with Turkey to find ways to rehabilitate the infrastructure damaged by the earthquake in the agricultural sector.

The agency said that earthquakes in Syria suggest major disruptions to crop and livestock production, threatening immediate and longer-term food security.

The decision allows holders of Turkish temporary protection cards residing in earthquake-damaged areas to cross into Syria without having to obtain a travel permit from Turkish authorities. Normally, Turkey would consider Syrians holding protected status who crossed into Syria without a permit to have relinquished their status as asylum-seekers. They would be banned from returning to Turkey for a period of five years.

Spain plans to take in some 100 Syrian refugees that have been impacted by the earthquake in Turkey. Migration Minister José Luis Escrivá said the refugees would be those considered most vulnerable and badly affected by the quake.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said the state was caring for 1,589 children who were separated from their families in the earthquake, including 247 who have not yet been identified.

The UN’s private funding and partnerships chief says Syria had lost the attention of the world. She was speaking at the summit that brings together political and thought leaders.

Mardini says the work of giving safe drinking water and distribution of sanitary services in areas affected by the earthquake is something that needs donor support to continue.

She says that it’s essential for their support to reach us as soon as possible so that we can get the aid to where it’s needed most.

The road to recovery for Syrians after the earthquakes will be long and uncertain, while aid groups try to marshal the current wave of support into greater pledges of aid.

There are estimates that 200,000 people are homeless in the government-controlled part of the city where the international aid is distributed.

The U.N.’s humanitarian relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, visited areas affected by the earthquakes and described situations of “unspeakable heartache.”

A Syrian resident of Turkey, with millions of followers on social media, shared his tear-filled video in Arabic detailing psychological trauma among Syrian survivors.

Abu Lebda also described seeing a Syrian man abruptly getting off a bus after insisting he’d heard his two children calling for him from under the rubble of his home.

The U.N. refugee agency has a shortfall since closing in December of the first year of the World Refugee Assistance Program (WISEAP)

Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency says it closed last year with only 56% of its funding needs met, leaving a $4.7 billion budget shortfall. The agency, which assists millions of Syrian refugees, says to date it has received just 15% of its global funding requirements for 2023 — a budget that’s yet to factor in the impact of the earthquakes.