Earthquake havoc compounds misfortune of Syrians left destitute by war

An Emirati search and rescue team searches through rubble in northwest Syria. (AFP)
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Updated 16 February 2023
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Earthquake havoc compounds misfortune of Syrians left destitute by war

  • Among the people most affected are 3 million internally displaced persons in the region bordering Turkiye
  • Political complications over sending aid to the northwest have adversely affected the humanitarian response

QAMISHLI, SYRIA: More than a week after twin earthquakes devastated parts of southeastern Turkiye and northwestern Syria, the death toll continues to rise by the hour. As of Tuesday, the total reported dead in the two countries stood at over 41,000, with tens of thousands more people injured.

Although the number of confirmed fatalities is lower in Syria — about 5,814 compared with 35,418 in Turkiye — more than a decade of civil war has left the country wholly unprepared to cope with a disaster of this magnitude.

An already dire situation in the northwest of the country, where a hodgepodge of rival regimes, opposition groups and terrorist factions have long battled for control, has escalated into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.

The Washington-based Middle East Institute estimates that up to 60 percent of the region’s infrastructure had already been damaged or destroyed prior to the February 6 earthquake, with medical facilities in particular devastated.

“Before the earthquake, most people were suffering from the humanitarian situation as a result of the destruction of most of the buildings and infrastructure due to the bombing of the Assad regime and its ally Russia, especially in the medical sector, and the lack of logistics and medicine,” Bashar Al-Fares, a journalist in northwestern Syria, told Arab News.

“Today, after the earthquakes that hit the northwestern regions of Syria, the situation has escalated. As a result of the destruction that occurred in the region, which was a shelter for refugees and forcibly displaced families from various Syrian governorates, thousands of people lost their lives in the earthquakes and many more were injured.




Saudi Arabia sent search and rescue teams to Syria and Turkiye. (SPA)

“This was compounded by the severe shortage of medical staff, medicines, and rescue equipment.”

Having been driven from their homes elsewhere in the country to escape bombardment, conscription, fighting and persecution, about 3 million people in the region of Syria bordering Turkiye are categorized as internally displaced.

Freezing winter temperatures, including heavy snowfall prior to the earthquakes, combined with an unprecedented cholera outbreak and the ongoing conflict in the country have left Syrians facing a litany of overlapping misfortunes with little outside assistance.

The cholera outbreak, which began in August, has so far affected more than 77,000 people across the country, almost 38,000 of them in Idlib and Aleppo governorates — the regions hardest hit by the earthquakes.

Adding to people’s misery, Syria’s currency collapsed late last year. The black-market exchange rate against the US dollar had already risen from 500 Syrian pounds in 2018 to 3,300 in 2021. By the end of last year, it had soared to more than 6,600.

The value of the pound has continued to plummet since the earthquakes, with the exchange rate reaching more than 7,400 pounds this week, further reducing the average family’s purchasing power.

Although the annual death toll in the country last year was the lowest since the start of the conflict more than a decade ago, the fighting continued between various factions in the regions destined to be devastated by the earthquakes.

As recently as Feb. 3, regime forces bombarded the outskirts of Al-Bara in rural Idlib with heavy artillery. Just two days before the earthquakes, clashes between Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a network of hardline Islamist groups, and regime forces in Latakia left dozens dead.

Afrin, one of the areas hit hardest by the disaster, has been in a state of chaos since Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army invaded the region in 2018, capturing it from the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

Up until then, Afrin had been considered a relatively peaceful region throughout most of the conflict, and so hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people from other regions had settled there.

The violent upheaval in 2018 displaced the predominantly Kurdish population, with 300,000 fleeing to other parts of Syria and abroad, according to a 2018 report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

With their homes now destroyed by the earthquakes, the remaining Kurdish population might be forced to follow those who left and risk the perilous journey to find sanctuary elsewhere.

INNUMBERS

• 9m+ people affected by earthquakes in Hama, Latakia, Idlib, Aleppo and Tartus.

• 5,814 confirmed fatalities in Syria as of Tuesday.

• 90% of Syrians living below the poverty line.

According to the International Organization for Migration, almost 250 migrants were killed while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe last year. From 2021 to 2022, the number of Syrians attempting the risky sea crossing from Africa to Europe increased six-fold, according to EU border agency Frontex.

For those with no choice but to remain in Syria, the effects of the earthquakes and their aftermath simply add to their misery.

“The situation in Syria is terrible in every way,” Sardar Mullah Darwish, a Syrian Kurdish journalist and analyst, told Arab News. “These earthquakes are just the latest disaster of many. Many civilians will die and no one can help them.

“It’s very difficult to help them. Everyone should have come together and put their conflicts aside but, unfortunately, this hasn’t happened.”

Darwish said more than a decade of civil war essentially has divided Syria into three different countries: The areas controlled by the regime, the opposition and the AANES.

The destruction caused by the earthquakes encompasses areas within and beyond regime control, including Jinderis in Afrin, which is controlled by the opposition, and Aleppo and coastal cities controlled by Damascus.

“Now a major issue is that because Syria is divided politically, the regime only wants to bring aid for itself and the opposition only wants to bring aid for itself,” said Darwish.




“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” said Martin Griffiths, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, emergency relief coordinator. (Supplied)

Political agendas surrounding the provision of aid to the Syrian people have further complicated the humanitarian response in an already vulnerable area.

The Bab Al-Hawa border crossing near Idlib on the border between Syria and Turkiye is the only approved crossing for the delivery of UN aid via Turkiye direct to people in Syria. The crossing was closed for three days as a result of damage it sustained during the earthquakes.

As a result, it was not until Thursday, Feb. 9, that six trucks from the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, carrying shelter and non-food items, arrived in northwestern Syria.

On Monday, a week after the earthquakes struck, Syrian President Bashar Assad told the UN he would reopen two other crossing points, Bab Al-Salam and Al-Raee, for an initial period of three months to allow timely delivery of aid to the affected areas.

Largely isolated from the wider country, northwestern Syria was forced to fend almost entirely for itself in the days immediately following the disaster.

“All cities in Idlib governorate and the northern countryside of Aleppo have Civil Defense centers (the staff of which are better known internationally as the White Helmets) and they are always prepared for anything to happen,” said Darwish.

“However, the lack of heavy rescue equipment for all rescue teams was one of the biggest problems because what happened in northwestern Syria was a catastrophe that no country could handle.




The civil war, cholera outbreak and collapsing economy have forced thousands of Syrian refugees into neighboring Turkiye. (AFP)

“Until now, the Civil Defense and rescue teams are still continuing their work in searching for the victims and pulling them out from under the rubble.”

The broader aid response has been chaotic. Although the Assad government pledged to provide aid for all areas affected by the earthquake, including those it does not control, Al-Fares said that, to his knowledge, no regime-supplied deliveries had arrived in Idlib so far.

Hundreds of trucks carrying food, fuel, water and other essential supplies from the AANES were stuck in Manbij for several days. For political reasons, neither the opposition nor the regime was giving permission for the trucks to enter the city’s earthquake-stricken areas.

Asked whether the devastation could result in many more Syrians seeking refuge in neighboring countries, or beyond, Al-Fares said: “There are no clear and safe crossings for them if they intend to migrate to other, more stable countries.”

In other words, there is simply nowhere left for Syrians left destitute by one crisis after another to go.


Egypt grand museum delay puts tourism hopes on hold

Updated 58 min 36 sec ago
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Egypt grand museum delay puts tourism hopes on hold

  • The vast museum, two decades in the making, has faced repeated delays
  • Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of Egypt’s workforce, but the sector has struggled

CAIRO: In the shadow of the Grand Egyptian Museum, souvenir shop owner Mona has been readying for the tourist boom she hoped the long-awaited opening would bring – now once again out of reach.

“I had bet everything on this opening,” she said from her shop, just steps from the iconic pyramids of Giza, which the much-anticipated museum overlooks.

Originally scheduled to fully open this month, the museum was expected to attract up to five million visitors annually, fueling optimism across Cairo’s battered tourism sector.

“We planned our entire summer and fall packages around the museum opening,” said Nadine Ahmed, a 28-year-old agent with Time Travel tours.

“But with group cancelations, refunds and route changes, we’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars.”

Though parts of the museum have been open for months, the main draw – the treasures of Tutankhamun – will remain under wraps until the official launch.

Less than three weeks before its July 3 opening, the government announced another delay, this time pushing the landmark event to the final quarter of the year.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly cited regional security concerns and the desire to host an event of “global scale.”

The vast museum, two decades in the making, has faced repeated delays – from political upheaval and economic crises to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ahead of the expected launch, Mona, who asked to be identified by her first name only, took out a loan to renovate her store and stock up on goods inspired by the museum’s collection.

A few streets away, Mohamed Mamdouh Khattab, 38, prepared months in advance, hiring and training extra staff and expanding his inventory.

“The opening of the museum is a key milestone,” said Khattab, who owns a sprawling bazaar of handcrafted jewelry and ancient replicas.

“It’s a project that should have been launched a long time ago,” said the vendor, whose family has been in the industry since the 1970s.

Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of Egypt’s workforce, but the sector has struggled – from the fallout of the 2011 Arab Spring to militant attacks and the COVID-19 shutdown.

Still, signs of recovery have emerged: Egypt welcomed 3.9 million tourists in the first quarter of 2025, up 25 percent from the same period last year – itself a record.

At a Giza papyrus workshop, 30-year-old tour guide Sara Mahmoud hopes the opening will revive visitor numbers.

“Big openings have brought a lot of tourism to Egypt before,” she said, pointing to the 2021 Pharaohs’ Golden Parade and the reopening of the Avenue of the Sphinxes.

“These events get people excited – we saw the crowds coming in.”

Such momentum could make a real difference, said Ragui Assaad, an economist at the University of Minnesota.

“Any initiative that directly increases foreign exchange earnings is likely to have a good return on investment,” he said.

“If you compare it with all the other mega-projects, which do not increase foreign exchange earnings... this is a far better project.”

He was referring to a sweeping infrastructure drive under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, including the construction of a massive new administrative capital east of Cairo.

The stakes are high: since 2022, Egypt’s currency has lost two-thirds of its value, squeezing household budgets and straining every layer of the economy.

“There were days when I sold just one bracelet,” Mona lamented, thinking back to the years when “tourists arrived in droves.”


Israeli ultra-Orthodox party leaves government over conscription bill

Updated 15 July 2025
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Israeli ultra-Orthodox party leaves government over conscription bill

  • Ultra-Orthodox parties have argued that a bill to exempt yeshiva students was a key promise in their agreement to join the coalition in late 2022

JERUSALEM: One of Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism, said it was quitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition due to a long-running dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt yeshiva students from military service.
Six of the remaining seven members of UTJ, which is comprised of the Degel Hatorah and Agudat Yisrael factions, wrote letters of resignation. Yitzhak Goldknopf, chairman of UTJ, had resigned a month ago.
That would leave Netanyahu with a razor thin majority of 61 seats in the 120 seat Knesset, or parliament.
It was not clear whether Shas, another ultra-Orthodox party, would follow suit.
Degel Hatorah said in a statement that after conferring with its head rabbis, "and following repeated violations by the government to its commitments to ensure the status of holy yeshiva students who diligently engage in their studies ... (its MKs) have announced their resignation from the coalition and the government."
Ultra-Orthodox parties have argued that a bill to exempt yeshiva students was a key promise in their agreement to join the coalition in late 2022.
A spokesperson for Goldknopf confirmed that in all, seven UTJ Knesset members are leaving the government.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have long threatened to leave the coalition over the conscription bill.
Some religious parties in Netanyahu's coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.
The ultra-Orthodox have long been exempt from military service, which applies to most other young Israelis, but last year the Supreme Court ordered the defence ministry to end that practice and start conscripting seminary students.
Netanyahu had been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.
The exemption, in place for decades and which over the years has spared an increasingly large number of people, has become a heated topic in Israel with the military still embroiled in a war in Gaza. 

 


More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

Updated 15 July 2025
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More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

  • As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May

BENGHAZI: More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country’s attorney general said on Monday.
“A criminal group involved in organizing the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,” a statement from the attorney general said.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.
Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said.
The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects’ mobile phones.
They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten.
In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment.
That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network.
As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May.
Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognized prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. 

 


Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Updated 15 July 2025
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Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

  • Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP
  • US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks entered a second week on Monday, with meditators seeking to close the gap between Israel and Hamas, as more than 20 people were killed across the Palestinian territory.
The indirect negotiations in Qatar appear deadlocked after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for the release of hostages and a 60-day ceasefire after 21 months of fighting.
An official with knowledge of the talks said they were “ongoing” in Doha on Monday, telling AFP: “Discussions are currently focused on the proposed maps for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza.”
“Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who wants to see the Palestinian militant group destroyed — of being the main obstacle.
“Netanyahu is skilled at sabotaging one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement,” the group wrote on Telegram.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed Monday in the latest Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City and in Khan Yunis in the south.
An Israeli military statement said troops had destroyed “buildings and terrorist infrastructure” used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City’s Shujaiya and Zeitun areas.
The Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas — released footage on Monday that it said showed its fighters firing missiles at an Israeli army command and control center near Shujaiya.
The military later on Monday said three soldiers — aged 19, 20 and 21 — “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” and died in hospital on Monday. Another from the same battalion was severely injured.

US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week.”
Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.
“Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators continue their efforts that make Israel present a modified withdrawal map that would be acceptable,” they added.
On Saturday, the same source said Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in more than 40 percent of Gaza, as well as plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
A senior Israeli political official countered by accusing Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire once a deal for a temporary truce is agreed, but only when Hamas lays down its arms.
He is under pressure to wrap up the war, with military casualties rising and with public frustration mounting at both the continued captivity of the hostages taken on October 7 and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but he denies being beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility, cost and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
Israel’s security establishment is reported to be unhappy with the plan, which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert have described as a “concentration camp.”
“If they (Palestinians) will be deported there into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper late on Sunday.
Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of whom 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,386 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

 


Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Updated 15 July 2025
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Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

  • Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighboring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 48 civilians in an attack on a village in the center of the war-torn country, a monitoring group reported Monday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the two-year conflict between the regular army and the RSF, reported civilians were killed en masse Sunday when paramilitary fighters stormed the village of Um Garfa in North Kordofan state, razing houses and looting property.