dpa
Damascus/Istanbul
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday, just before the Turkish leader flew to the earthquake-ravaged Hatay province.
Blinken had earlier met civilian aid workers from the Syrian rescue group White Helmets during his visit to the Turkish-Syrian border region ravaged by earthquakes.
The civilian rescue group described the desperate situation amid the rubble in north-west Syria, where the decade-long civil war has complicated international efforts to deliver aid and assistance.
White Helmets deputy Farouk Habib described US support as “crucial” durin the meeting with Blinken. Habib told dpa afterwards that Blinken reiterated US support for uninhibited humanitarian aid delivery to the region.
Sweden has called for a donor conference of European Union countries on March 16 to raise relief funds and coordinate aid for Turkey and Syria.
The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria from the massive earthquakes has continued to rise and now stands above 47,000. In Turkey alone, the disaster authority AFAD reported on Monday that 41,156 people died in the quakes.
The official death toll in Syria stands at 5,900 but it has not been updated in days. Thousands more are feared dead in both countries.
Survivors in north-west Syria expressed sorrow and frustration that international aid has been slow to arrive in the war-torn region, even two weeks after the earthquakes struck. Much of the destruction took place in areas controlled by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“We still lack tents, lack fuel for heating and keep our children,” said Abu Ahmad, who lost his home in the countryside outside of Idlib, Syria, and is now living in a shelter. “We were struggling before the earthquake and now we are destroyed totally.”
Activist Mustafa Dahnoun, who is from Idlib, told dpa by phone that “aid is still very slow” and that people in the area “are in great need of everything.” “The world community should work harder and push for more aid to our region,” he said.
In Syria alone, 8.8 million people have been affected by the earthquakes, the deputy UN representative for Syria, Najat Rochdi, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Since the disaster, more than 140 trucks carrying UN aid have travelled from Turkey to rebel-held Syria. There, more than 9,000 buildings were completely or partially destroyed, and at least 11,000 people lost their homes.
A tour of the destruction in Turkey left Blinken, the top US diplomat, grasping for words on Monday to describe what he saw.
Blinken had earlier announced that the US would increase aid for the disaster from $100 million to $185 million.
Blinken praised the work and expertise of the Syrian White Helmets and the search and rescue teams, speaking of “heroic efforts” after the disaster.
In Turkey, search and rescue efforts have been called off in most of the affected provinces. Only in the provinces of Kahramanmaras and Hatay will the search continue for victims, AFAD chairman Yunus Sezer told journalists in Ankara on Sunday.
Sezer estimated that more than 1.2 million people have fled the affected region in Turkey and over 1 million people are currently in emergency shelters.
NATO is among the many international agencies involved in relief efforts and is preparing to establish a camp in Turkey for 4,000 people.
A spokesman for the alliance said that a cargo ship with 600 containers left the Italian port of Taranto on Sunday evening and should arrive in the Turkish city of Iskenderun within the week. NATO is also coordinating an airlift of tents from Pakistan to Turkey.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser plan to visit the affected areas of Turkey on Tuesday to assess aid work.
The German leaders also plan to check on diplomatic efforts to expedite visas to allow displaced Turks to stay with relatives in Germany, including with a mobile visa processing bus.
Two major earthquakes struck the area just hours apart on the morning of February 6. A 7.7-magnitude tremor centred in south-eastern Turkey struck first, follow by a second severe 7.6-magnitude tremor centred in northern Syria.
Turkish authorities said they have recorded more than 6,000 aftershocks in the two weeks since.
