Two weeks after the earthquake, almost nine million Syrians are in need of humanitarian aid, the UN warns. This Sunday, 14 trucks with tents and material to alleviate the rigors of winter arrived in Syria, but Doctors Without Borders is asking for urgent humanitarian aid. Gustavo Carona, a doctor who has been involved in humanitarian missions since 2009, was in Syria about ten years ago and, speaking with TSFit describes a country lacking in everything, a situation that has serious consequences for health.
“At the time I was in Syria, polio reappeared, which is a disease that had been eradicated from Europe for decades, and almost eradicated from the entire world. The discontinuity of basic health services causes diseases that we had already managed to eradicate through relatively simple vaccination campaigns to reappear, there are children who will die due to lack of antibiotics, surgical conditions to remove an appendix or perform a cesarean section on a pregnant woman, not to mention the decompensation of chronic diseases in older adults, with diabetes, hypertension, respiratory or heart diseases. These people are in need of everything in terms of medical care. What has been in recent years is very basic, these people are suffering everywhere, ”he explains to TSF Gustavo Carona.
In addition to health, there is a political problem, with the civil war that has been going on for 12 years. The earthquake only made the situation worse.
and, for Gustavo Carona, it is hard to believe that the Syrian president is going to authorize the passage of humanitarian aid to areas controlled by the rebels.
“We already know that the situation was extremely fragile. With the earthquake it became chaotic. Only with an acute situation do we realize a problem, which is chronic, and which unfortunately is political and, in the midst of all this, there are millions of innocent people who are suffering the unimaginable,” he says, underlining the scenario of “extreme poverty , malnutrition and lack of access to the most basic things, such as water, electricity, basic medicines that this population has been needing”.
“Being that your dictator has been bombing you for the last 12 years, it is hard to imagine that he will now open the doors to humanitarian aid,” he defends.
Along with Doctors Without Borders, Gustavo Carona asks everyone to try to help a people who are not to blame.
“If I could get on a plane, I would go to Turkey, Syria, Yemen or the Central African Republic. We have to focus both on raising awareness of the humanitarian problem and on the best way to help these people. Tacking by turning your head and pretending not to see is an option that we should never take, ”he adds.
More than 46,000 people died after earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, including some 5,800 in this already war-torn country.
Syria has been going through a civil war since 2011, triggered by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, which has already caused half a million deaths, displaced millions and fragmented the country.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, measuring 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, respectively, occurred on February 6, followed by several aftershocks but of lesser intensity.
Source: TSF
