Durban – Despite the tough conditions, medical staff from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) continue to toil in Syria to help earthquake survivors, some of whom are still trapped in the rubble.
The lack of clean water, fuel and electricity are among the challenges.
According to Andrew Mews, the director of MSF in southern Africa, they have been on the ground in northern Syria for over a decade to provide humanitarian assistance after the outbreak of civil war there in 2011.
The NGO provides medical assistance to the people and where access is not possible, they support health facilities.
“In Syria, 14 million people needed humanitarian assistance before the earthquake and of course it makes it more dramatic,” he said.
“What they are experiencing now is a lack of fuel, a lack of electricity and adequate water and sanitation.
“That makes it hard to roll out humanitarian support and relief support to the affected people of Syria.”
He said while they were struggling with access challenges – they don’t have full access rights to the entire region as different groupings control it – another tragedy hit.
That was in September last year when cholera hit the area.
“Before the earthquake in northern Syria, there was an outbreak of cholera and MSF has been responding this cholera outbreak in the last few months.
“Then the earthquake happened, which has disrupted the water supply even further. Our big concern is that as more and more people are displaced, the risk of cholera outbreak goes up,” Mews said. Their immediate task was providing clean water to the people trapped in camps.
He said most humanitarian assistance had been sent to neighbouring Turkey because that was the epicentre of the devastating quake and it was easy to get there, but Syria urgently needed help as well.
The combined death in Turkey and Syria stands at over 21 000 and Mews said in Syria alone it currently stood at 3 300.
He said they had been warned that it could climb higher in the coming days as rescue efforts continued.
With Syria in the grip of a freezing desert until April, Mews said they expected their teams to soldier on under difficult conditions.
“We have a lot of concerns because it’s winter and search-and-rescue teams have not been able to access Syria as they have in Turkey … we would expect that number (death toll) to rise.
“Of course, the medical impact, people who may still be trapped in the earthquake surviving cold conditions makes it more difficult,” he said.