Sanctions and conflict divisions have hampered aid to earthquake-ravaged Syria

• Damage roads and other infrastructure in southern Turkey have slowed the delivery of supplies to northern Syria.
• The northeast of Syria is largely controlled by US-backed Kurdish-led militias.
• Syrian Arab Red Crescent head called for the European Union to lift its sanctions on Syria.

BEIRUT, — Even before Monday’s deadly earthquake, delivering relief to all sections of war-torn Syria had formidable political and logistical obstacles.

These obstacles have only grown in the aftermath of the calamity that has killed hundreds in Turkey and Syria and destroyed thousands of structures.

Damage to roads and other infrastructure in southern Turkey has slowed the delivery of supplies to northern Syria, which has already been decimated by 12 years of conflict.

The “conflict and the way the humanitarian response is split between rebel areas and Damascus” complicate aid distribution, according to Aron Lund, a Syria researcher at the New York-based think tank Century International.

While the government in Damascus controls the bulk of Syria, the majority of the north is controlled by several — and sometimes opposing — organizations. The northwest is divided between territory de facto controlled by Turkey and territory controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaida-linked rebel force. The northeast of Syria is largely controlled by US-backed Kurdish-led militias.

Because of the difficulty of passing via Damascus, foreign aid has been delivered to northwestern Idlib province via Turkey for many years. However, the area of southern Turkey that has traditionally been used as a staging area has been severely damaged by the earthquake.

Aid delivery into northwestern Syria was “temporarily interrupted” Tuesday, according to a United Nations spokesperson, due to infrastructure damage and challenges with road access.

Damage to the Hatay airport and the road to the aid crossing, Bab al-Hawa, were particularly slowing shipments, according to Emma Beals, a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

Enormous needs in Turkey itself

“There is also the fact that there are enormous needs in Turkey itself,” she said.

One cause for hold-ups is that the U.N. mandate for delivering aid to the territory only allows it to enter through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, Beals said. Also, international search teams may be reluctant to enter earthquake-affected areas controlled by HTS, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.

The group’s “presence limits the kinds of aid many donors are prepared to supply to the area,” she said.

The Damascus regime and its Russian allies have seized the opportunity to revive their demand for northern aid to be funneled through Damascus. Countries opposed to Assad do not trust Syrian authorities to provide help to opposition areas and are concerned that it may be redirected to benefit people and institutions associated with the government.

According to Natasha Hall, a senior scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, transporting aid via Damascus to the north is not feasible in practice, especially during a moment of crisis.

“It is extremely logistically and administratively difficult to get the approvals (from Damascus),” she said. Coordination of aid is also hampered “because the government of Syria doesn’t recognize the non-governmental organizations working in northwest Syria.”

At a press conference Tuesday in Damascus, Syrian Arab Red Crescent head Khaled Hboubati said his group is “ready to deliver relief aid to all regions of Syria, including areas not under government control.” He called for the European Union to lift its sanctions on Syria in light of the massive destruction caused by the earthquake.

Aid convoys and rescuers from several countries, notably key ally Russia, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Iran, and Algeria, have landed in airports in government-held Syria.

Difficult humanitarian situation

Still, the sanctions exacerbate the “difficult humanitarian situation,” Hboubati said.

“There is no fuel even to send (aid and rescue) convoys, and this is because of the blockade and sanctions,” he said.

Rescue teams search through the wreckage of collapsed buildings in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. Rescuers raced Tuesday to find survivors in the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by a powerful earthquake and multiple aftershocks that struck eastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

So far, the U.S. and its allies have resisted attempts at creating a political opening by way of the disaster response. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that it would be “ironic, if not even counterproductive, for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now.”

Price said the U.S. would continue to provide aid through “humanitarian partners on the ground.”

Similarly, a spokesperson for the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said the “sanctions regime was put in place in response to human rights violations and other abuses by the regime and their cronies.”

According to a US State Department official, humanitarian assistance in government-held areas is provided by partner organisations rather than the government.

“Our partners in regime-controlled areas directly deliver assistance to beneficiaries without control or direction from the Assad regime,” they told sources. “This is to ensure that our assistance is not diverted by malign actors or the Assad regime and reaches the intended beneficiaries.”

One of the main groups supported by the United States and Britain is a civil defense organization in opposition-held areas known as the White Helmets; USAID Administrator Samantha Power spoke with the group’s head Tuesday and “discussed how USAID can provide the most urgently needed assistance in response to the earthquake,” her office said in a statement.

European Commission

According to European Commission spokeswoman Balazs Ujvari, the European Union has supplied relief in all areas of Syria through UN and NGO partners and is attempting to expand funds for humanitarian assistance. According to him, the Syrian government has not yet formally requested that Europe deploy rescue and medical personnel.

In theory, sanctions should not impede assistance operations in government territories because both the US and the EU have exemptions for humanitarian relief.

However, the reality on the ground can vary. Banks, for example, may restrict transactions to pay suppliers or local workers for humanitarian organizations, despite the exclusions, according to Lund.

In addition, US sanctions, and to a lesser extent EU sanctions, seek to hinder the restoration of damaged infrastructure and property in government-held areas in the absence of a political solution, which could impede post-earthquake rehabilitation, according to Lund.

Meanwhile, local emergency workers in both sections of Syria report that only limited relief is reaching them.

“There are promises that aid will get to us but nothing has gotten here yet,” said the White Helmets’ head Raed Saleh.

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