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Syrian border open – aid is on its way

Cologne/Gaziantep. February 10: While international aid workers have arrived in Türkiye and are helping with rescue activities and the distribution of relief supplies, the situation in Syria remains highly precarious. “We are trying to provide aid for the people who survived and are now enduring in the cold. We haven’t had electricity since Monday, it’s only slowly coming back, everything is somehow scarce – it’s extremely difficult,” reports Hassan Alam, who works for Malteser International’s Syrian partner organization Hand in Hand for Aid and Development in northwestern Syria.

Particularly traumatic for the Syrian aid workers: “People were calling for help, we could hear them but couldn’t get through to them. We have no equipment, no machines and had to dig with our own hands – it was very, very bad,” says Hassan Alam. “We hope more aid will come, including heavy equipment.”

Relief deliveries across the Turkish-Syrian border are currently progressing slowly through the only open border crossing with Türkiye at Bab Al-Hawa. This is due to delays caused by damage to transport infrastructure in the Hatay region and staff shortages at the border. “We hope that more border crossings will be opened for relief supplies and that more aid can reach the region,” says Oliver Hochedez, who is coordinating Malteser International’s emergency relief efforts for Türkiye and Syria from the Turkish border town of Kilis. “Our Syrian partner organisations have received financial assistance from us to purchase goods available on the Syrian market, such as food and blankets, and to distribute them quickly.”

Malteser International is currently supporting six hospitals, a maternity clinic with children’s hospital, and eight primary health care units in the Idlib and north Aleppo regions of north western Syria. The aid projects in the Syrian border region are managed from Türkiye. Relief supplies are distributed through local partner organisations. Malteser International has been involved with the region through humanitarian work for several years.

Malteser International’s appeal for donations can be found at: https://www.malteser-international.org/en/donation.html

Photo credit: HIHFAD/Malteser International