The death toll from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is now at 20,000 and counting. The United States government is “committed” to providing aid “on both sides” of the Turkey-Syria border. But in an area devastated by civil war, where the dictator in Syria uses humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip and where Turkey is already hosting more than 3.5 million refugees, no amount of international money or social media empathy can guarantee people there will ever recover.
No earthquake or natural disaster recognizes national boundaries.
No earthquake or natural disaster recognizes national boundaries. The outpouring of support from people around the world shows that in a time of crisis, humanity is easily able to transcend national boundaries. But the politics of disaster recovery, the slow churn of bureaucracy, is once again getting in the way of saving people’s lives.
While Turkey has the tools and resources to focus on a rescue mission, people in Syria’s north will soon be forced to switch to recovering human remains.
It’s no wonder that Turkish President Recep Erdogan is struggling in his personal and practical response to two devastating earthquakes that toppled thousands of buildings, leaving millions without basic services across 10 provinces. Declaring a national state of emergency and deploying federal troops is not enough to make up for regional fuel shortages, the lack of trained local rescue teams, and what people inside Turkey are calling a slow government response.
In a visit Wednesday to a town where entire blocks have disappeared, Erdogan acknowledged “some issues” with the response and transportation, but promised that all who were left homeless would have new housing within a year. It’s a bold policy response to the wave of public anger, and no doubt influenced by Erdogan’s own re-election in three months.
Effective disaster response and recovery often comes down to mundane logistics: for example, knowing how many tents and temporary shelters are available, where the tents are, how the tents can be moved and — most importantly — who has the authority to move the tents to where they are needed. This last bureaucratic element of how quickly or slowly people can connect within a system to make things happen makes all the difference between life and death. In a disaster where people are struggling to breathe under piles of rubble, every minute counts.
In a place like Syria, where dictator Bashar al-Assad has waged a 10-year war against his own people, with the support of Russia, connecting the logistics of delivering international aid to people on the ground is its own minefield. The United States military announced the deployment of two teams skilled in urban search and rescue, but is sending them directly to Turkey. According to Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, more than a dozen international teams are now in place working through the night and bitter cold to find survivors.
Syria is not as lucky. While the State Department affirmed aid will be designated for people inside Syria, the United States will only work with the limited number of nonprofits operating in that country because “it would be ironic, if not counterproductive to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now.” Even before the earthquake hit Syria, as many as 4 million people in the country were dependent on aid from across the border. Who controls incoming aid is a long-standing challenge in conflict zones. Even before the earthquake hit Syria, as many as 4 million people in the country were dependent on aid from across the border. But the north is held by rebel groups, where hundreds of families are still under rubble, and no rescue teams have arrived. The Turkish border crossings were impassable for days because of snow and damage. Assad’s government in Damascus will not send teams into an area it does not control, only allowing aid to enter through one tightly controlled border crossing. And airlifts from other countries complicates an already tense truce. As of Thursday, four days after the disaster, the Syrian Civil Defense Group, known as The White Helmets, said two routes from Turkey may be open into Syria’s rebel-held territory. But that would only be for the resumption of normal food and medicine deliveries provided by the United Nations, not specialized disaster response teams or equipment that can quickly remove the piles of concrete and metal that are covering any remaining survivors. More than 40 countries have mobilized support for the victims of this earthquake. The good will and skill set exists to save lives, but getting past the politics of conflict and power still eludes global leaders. This is not new to Syria, a country that has 1 percent of the world’s population, but produced 30 percent of the refugees when Russia supported Assad’s bombing and assault on Syrians. Iran’s jumping into the mix made the United States and European allies shy away from taking military action to support humanitarian goals. Ideas of sovereignty and how countries justify dropping bombs have gotten in the way of protecting Syrians for more than a decade. The stark reality of this crisis — and placing the blame on nature, a force out of political control — may finally help global leaders and Assad put the people of Syria first.
Nayyera Haq is a global affairs journalist. 
