Akm Shehabuddin Kisslu: The United Nations General Secretary António Guterres urged International community to help earth quake victims in Turkey and Syrian side of the border.
U.N. Chief António Guterres said the U.N. was counting on the international community to help those caught up in the disaster, “many of whom were already in dire need of humanitarian aid in areas where access is a challenge.” Specialist U.N. surge teams from the Office of U.N. Disaster Assessment and Coordination tweeted that they were “ready to deploy.”
Emergency medical teams from the World Health Organization have been sent to provide essential care for the injured and most vulnerable, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted.
U.N. General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi extended “deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences” to the people of both countries. He then requested diplomats to stand and observe a minute of silence in memory of those who died.
United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said 224 buildings in northwestern Syria were destroyed and at least 325 were damaged, including aid warehouses.
In the small Syrian rebel-held town of Azmarin in the mountains by the Turkish border, the bodies of several dead children were brought to a hospital wrapped in blankets.
An hour’s drive to the southeast in Idlib, Osama Abdel Hamid said he, his wife and three children were fleeing their collapsed four-story building, where most of their neighbors died, when a wooden door fell on them and protected them from falling debris.
“God gave me a new lease on life,” he said.
The U.N. had been assisting 2.7 million people each month via cross-border deliveries, which could now be disrupted.
Aid groups in the region say the only crossing between Turkey and Syria approved by the U.N. for transporting international aid has been unusable since the earthquake struck, further hampering efforts.
