A deadly earthquake worsens the suffering of Syrian refugees

After a devastating earthquake shook the area on Monday, a constant stream of injured people poured into an overflowing hospital in the town of Darkush in rebel-held northwest Syria. Mothers surrounded the sobbing kids.

One man was sitting amid the mayhem, looking confused and sporting cuts all over his face.

Osama Abdul Hamid had just about made it out of his apartment building in the neighboring village of Azmarin alive with his wife and four kids.

Many of their neighbors did not have such good fortune.

Abdul Hamid sobbed and stated, “The building is four stories, and from three of them, no one made it out. I have a fresh lease on life because of God.

The final rebel-held area in Syria, which had already been destroyed by years of fighting and bombardment and was home to millions of internally displaced people who had abandoned their homes throughout the country’s civil conflict, was hit hard by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred early on Monday.

Numerous injured people swarmed hospitals and clinics. Many displaced people are housed in substandard camps in the enclave in the Idlib province.

Many others there and in nearby government-controlled areas reside in structures that have already been damaged by bombings, making them much more susceptible to earthquake shock.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor headquartered in Britain, the earthquake caused complete and partial damage to buildings in at least 58 villages, towns, and cities in northwest Syria.

There have been more than 1,300 fatalities in Turkey and Syria, and more are likely to follow.

More than 100 people were reported dead in Syria’s opposition-held territory, but it is thought that hundreds more are buried beneath the wreckage of their homes.

Carsten Hansen, the head of the Middle East at the Norwegian Refugee Council, stated that “this calamity will deepen the misery of Syrians already grappling with a terrible humanitarian crisis.” “War in the region has already forced millions to evacuate, and the disaster will displace many more.

In a statement, the Syrian American Medical Society, which manages hospitals in southern Turkey and northern Syria, claimed that its facilities are “overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways” and that “trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response are urgently needed to save lives and treat the injured.”

Even after Syrian government forces retook the majority of rebel-held territories around the nation, the opposition-held enclave in Syria’s northwest has resisted for years.

With Syrian soldiers nearby supported by Russia, fighting still breaks out occasionally. While some regions are governed by rebel organizations, including a prominent militant group with ties to al-Qaida, other areas are governed by the Interim Syrian Government, which supports Turkey.

The catastrophe followed a string of powerful winter storms, further adding to the misery of those without shelter.