Earthquake disaster latest: fresh snow

compounds Syrians’ misery

8 February 2023Humanitarian Aid

Fresh snowfall in Syria on Wednesday has compounded the already desperate

situation faced by millions of people in the five governorates whose lives have been
shattered by the earthquake disaster, the UN’s top humanitarian official in the country
said.
“We have already a very vulnerable situation; people (are) already vulnerable, not
capable of taking care of themselves…and all of a sudden comes this,” said El-Mostafa
Benlamlih, UN Resident Coordinator for Syria.

Progress lost
“All the achievements we had before, anybody who had a small business has lost that
business, anybody who could go to school cannot go to school, women who could go
to protection centres cannot go to protection centres.

Mr. Benlamlih warned that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance
– currently 15.3 million – will have to be revised upwards.

Speaking from Damascus via video link, Mr. Benlamlih told journalists in New York
that 10.9 million people in Syria had been affected by the catastrophe in the
northwestern governorates of Hama, Latakia, Idlib, Aleppo and Tartus.

Some 100,000 people are now believed to be homeless in Aleppo alone, the

humanitarian official continued, as he described how just 30,000 of that number had
found shelter in schools and mosques.

“Those are the lucky ones,” he said, before stressing that the remaining 70,000 “have
snow, they have cold and they are living in a terrible situation”.

UN News

El-Mostafa Benlamlih, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for
Syria.
Aid lifeline latest
Confirming that roads have been damaged that lead to the only permitted cross-border
aid route into northwest Syria from Türkiye at Bab al-Hawa, the UN Resident Coordinator
for Syria said that he was hopeful that the crossing point would reopen on Thursday.

“Luckily we’re hearing today that the road is opening…we’re hoping that tomorrow, we
will be able to deliver something across the border,” he said, stressing that UN aid
teams and partners had started working “from the first hour of the disaster” by using
prepositioned stocks of food, dignity and medical kits.