A member of the Syrian Civil Defense Forces, aka the “White Helmets,” cradles a young boy who was rescued from rubble in Northwest Syria in the aftermath of the twin earthquakes last Monday.
A week after twin 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes devastated the nations of Turkey and Syria, rescue efforts continue against decreasing odds of finding survivors in the rubble. The death toll increased to more than 33,000 people in both nations, including over 29,600 in Turkey and 3,500 in Syria. Tens of thousands of people are still missing in both nations, likely still undiscovered under almost 7,000 collapsed structures across ten Turkish provinces and several Syrian provinces, leading some experts to predict that the final death toll will rise above 100,000.
Over 2,100 Syrian deaths are in the rebel-held area of Northwest Syria alone, where the ongoing Syrian civil war adds hurdles of complexity to relief efforts. The almost 1,400 deaths reported in Syrian regime-held areas is likely understated, considering that Syrian government agencies have not publicly updated their statistics for days.
Harrowing stories of mothers buried under their homes screaming for their missing children were juxtaposed with miraculous stories of a 4-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy who were pulled from the rubble alive after five days. Over 140,000 first responders from across the world have flooded Turkey to assist in rescue efforts, although the likelihood of finding survivors diminishes significantly with each passing day.
In addition to 30,000 dead are almost 150,000 people injured in both Turkey and Syria, and over 130,000 homeless. Over 100,000 tents have been deployed to internally displaced Turks, while over 30,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area. The inability of international relief workers to access the hardest-hit areas of rebel-held Northwest Syria have left the homegrown Syrian Civil Defense Forces (aka “The White Helmets”) to pull both survivors and corpses from the rubble. The White Helmets became famous in the early days of the Syrian Civil War as the first responders in rebel-held areas where Russian and regime aircraft have pounded civilian neighborhoods with barrel bombs, cluster munitions and poison gas canisters for over a decade.
Complicating relief efforts are the ongoing political, ethnic and religious conflicts in both nations. The Turkish government has refused aid from the United States military and their Kurdish allies in Northeast Syria, with some officials claiming that the presence of a US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean is a pretext for invasion. Turkish relief efforts have prioritized ethnic Turks while ignoring hundreds of Kurdish communities equally devastated by the quakes. Video has been posted to social media showing Turkish police officers beating “looters” with batons who were later revealed to be earthquake survivors desperate for food. Likewise, in Syria, the government is confiscating 50% of aid supplies passing through regime-held areas for the rebel-held Northwest, while the Turkish military continues artillery fire and drone strikes in its war of attrition against Kurdish militias in Northeast Syria.
We implore the Maranatha global family to continue in intercession on behalf of the people of Southern Turkey and Northern Syria. We pray for rescue crews and medical teams to be granted success in finding, rescuing and saving as many lives as possible in affected communities, and we pray that this catastrophe, as all catastrophes, would open a wide, effectual door for Gospel laborers to bring Good News of hope and healing to a region which has been devastated by war, pandemic, poverty, and now natural disaster.
Maranatha.
