No temporary living units for earthquake-affected Syrians in regime-controlled areas until now – Syria six months after the earthquake

Six months after the devastating earthquake hit Northwestern Syria and large parts of Turkey, the situation for those heavily affected by it, is still very dire with missing adequate support from the Syrian government and no real shelters.

The afflicted population thus, is coerced to reside in temporary housings, until now, which they rent at their own expense, while others have to spend all their allowances on restoring and rebuilding their destroyed houses.

In fact, six months afterwards, nothing really has changed in spite of promises and concessions – Activists had confirmed that the Latakia Provincial Council had identified 7 areas where temporary housing units were supposed to be built with external funds from several Gulf countries. However, only scarce works were commenced in the respective areas with only a few of them being completed due to Damascus’ continuous reluctance to further invest in the fragile infrastructure.

Syrian activist Mohammed Al-Shamali reported to the “Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed” news: “The temporary homes that the government had received from some countries and foreign parties, including China, for the earthquake-affected families, were not handed over to the those they were intended for to receive. In fact, no one knows to whom they went after being handed over to the Syrian Red Crescent and the Syrian Trust for Development”.

According to the Housing Minister Suhail Abdul Latif, who recently had inspected the respective areas, the completion rate of the houses in the “Al-Haydariya” suburb in Aleppo had only reached 40 percent while he refrained from talking about the “Al-Masraniya” suburb that was also heavily affected.

News reports further revealed that all work is still in its early stages regarding the building of housing units for those affected by the earthquake in several areas inside Aleppo; these developments sparked harsh accusations against the Damascus government of having appropriated the received monetary funds and support while again shedding light on the continuous plight of the civilian population in Syria.