On Saturday, a small amount of foreign help was making its way into sections of Turkey and Syria as rescuers labored to extricate kids from the wreckage in regions devastated by a powerful earthquake that has killed over 24,000 people.
The afflicted areas saw a winter freeze, which hindered rescue attempts and added to the misery of millions of people, many of whom were in urgent need of assistance.
The UN cautioned that after the earthquake, which has left up to 5.3 million people homeless in Syria alone, at least 870,000 people in the two nations urgently required food.
Aftershocks from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday have increased the death toll and significantly disrupted the lives of survivors.
“When I see the destroyed buildings, the bodies, it’s not that I can’t see where I will be in two or three years — I can’t imagine where I’ll be tomorrow,” said Fidan Turan, a pensioner in Turkey’s southern city of Antakya, her eyes filling with tears.
“We’ve lost 60 of our extended family members,” she said. “Sixty! What can I say? It’s God’s will.”
In order to supply food rations to at least 590,000 newly displaced persons in Turkey and 284,000 in Syria, the United Nations World Food Programme made an appeal for $77 million.
It added that out of those, 45,000 were refugees and 545,000 were internally displaced individuals.
