The World Health Organization in Dubai: Handling the Earthquake to a Disaster-Instructed People’s Insights

The largest center of its kind by far, the facility in Dubai has 20 warehouses. From here, the organization is sending planeloads of medicine, infusions for intravenous drips and anesthesia, surgical instruments, splints and stretchers, to help with crushing-type injuries from the earthquake.

Like other aid agencies, the World Health Organization is struggling to reach people in need. The United Nations agency in charge of international public health has already loaded two planes with necessary medical supplies so that more than 68,000 people can be helped. One plane is going to Turkey while the other is going to Syria.

For countries in need, color-coded labels help identify which kits are needed for diseases such as Malaria, HIV, and the like. Emergency health kits that are green are reserved for Istanbul and Damascus.

“The trauma kits that we used in response to the earthquake were mostly emergency surgery kits,” says Robert Blanchard, the team lead in the WHO’s emergency operations.

Prior to working for the WHO, he was employed in the Foreign Service and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He claims that the organization is facing logistical challenges in reaching victims of the earthquake but their warehouses help deliver aid to countries in need.

Efforts to aid people in areas ravaged by the earthquake in Syria have been difficult due to the destroyed border entry points, a top aid official told CNN.

The weather is not looking so 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.

Aid groups are mostly going to Damascus for government-controlled parts of northern Syria. From there, the government is handling relief efforts into hard-hit cities like Aleppo and Latakia. Poor roads complicate relief efforts in Turkey.

The International Humanitarian City — The largest humanitarian hub on the world — is reaching the people in the Syrian crisis a day after the quake

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

The International Humanitarian City is the biggest humanitarian hub in the world, and includes the WHO’s warehouses. The zone is also home to warehouses for the U.N. refugee agency, World Food Program, Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations, UNICEF and others.

The government of Dubai covers the cost of storage facilities, utilities and flights carrying relief items into affected areas. The inventory is bought by the agencies.

$150 million worth of emergency stock 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.

“Because of its strategic position, we became the largest hub in the world and this is just one of several reasons,” she 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.”

Due to a problem with the plane’s engine, WHO supplies for Damascus were still grounded in Dubai as of Wednesday evening. The situation is evolving by the hour, and the organization is trying for direct flights to the runway at the government-controlled airport in Aleppo.

The UN says conditions for the people in Syria are getting worse due to fresh snowfall.

The UN cross-border aid operation was brought back up today. We are relieved that we are able to reach the people in northwest Syria in this pressing time. We hope that this operation continues as this is a humanitarian lifeline and the only scalable channel,” Sanjana Quazi, head of OCHA Türkiye said.

The administration that controls the only access point between Turkey and Syria reported that there were only 300 bodies when aid was not delivered at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

Immediately after the quake, the United Nations said roads to the crossing were blocked, but as of Wednesday they were clear, raising questions as to why it was taking so long for help to arrive.

The situation in Syria is very different to Turkey, where 14 international organizations have quickly offered teams of rescuers and aid.

The delivery of urgent supplies to quake-hit areas of northern Syria has been complicated by a long-running civil war between opposition forces and the Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of killing his own people.

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.

Doctors without Borders: The impact of the UN Security Council resolution on the refugee crisis in Syria and the crisis in Gaziantep, Turkey

At the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, protesters hold signs asking why only bodies are being allowed through. The bodies of refugees who fled Syria to Turkey are currently being sent back to their homeland.

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.

Water supplies are decreasing and survivors are having to face their own challenges. Moutaz Adham is the country director for Syria and he said residents are struggling to find food, because bakeries collapsed in the earthquake.

The isolated region in Syria has received no investment for over a decade according to the country director of the humanitarian organization. Tens of thousands of people are living in temporary shelters with no access to water, he said.

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.

However, since 2021, Russia and China have used their veto power to reduce the number of crossings from four to just one – Bab al-Hawa. China and Russia voted against keeping the UNSC open in January, fearing that aid to a Syrian enclave would fall into the hands of 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. “Because now, we are past the first phase of finding people, and we are heading into the humanitarian phase. We need to provide people with basic shelter, food, and water.”

The number of people who were in need of humanitarian assistance before the earthquake stood at 15.3 million – but that number will now have to be revised, UN Resident Coordinator for Syria, El-Mostafa Benlamlih said.

The aid worker said homeless people in northern Syria have been sleeping in their cars and that the situation is very difficult.

“Those who are still alive under the rubble might die from the cold weather,”  Dr. Mostafa Edo, the Country Director for the US-based NGO MedGlobal said.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/middleeast/turkey-syria-earthquake-aid-bab-al-hawa-intl-hnk/index.html

Hilfary in Syria: Aid, food and livelihoods for a regime that has brutalized its people over a decade and a half

So far, several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Russia, have sent relief to regime-controlled airports. Other countries, including Saudi Arabia, have also pledged aid.

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.

Mao said the US has been involved in the crisis for a long time. “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.”

“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. “If we want to bring aid to Syria, we can. Time is important. We are playing with life and death.

“It would be quite 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,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters Monday.

Humanitarian partners on the ground are able to provide the type of assistance that will respond to the tragic earthquakes. This is a regime… that has never shown any inclination to put the welfare, the wellbeing, the interests of its people first.”

That leaves the UN, which was working with millions of people who had been suffering from extreme poverty, as the only aid group that could help rebel-held areas.

Syrians do not know where their next meal comes from. When we say meal, it’s not about vegetables, not about meat… it’s about simple bread,” said Moutaz Adham, Oxfam’s country director for Syria.