Devastating Earthquake : UN Advocates $400 Aid For Syria

The United Nations has launched an appeal for the urgent donation of $400 million to help earthquake victims in Syria. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, announcing the appeal at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday, February 15, 2023 said the funds would bring “life-saving relief” for nearly five million Syrians and would cover a period of three months. “One week after the devastating earthquakes, millions of people across the region are struggling for survival, homeless and in freezing temperatures. We are doing all we can to change this. But much more is needed,” Guterres pleaded.
He called on member States to “fully fund this effort without delay and help the millions of children, women and men whose lives have been upended by this generational disaster.”
Guterres also urged that aid workers be allowed to operate freely in Syria, already racked by 12 years of civil war. Activists and emergency teams in Syria’s northwest have decried the slow UN response to the quake in rebel-held areas, contrasting it with the planeloads of humanitarian aid that have been delivered to government-controlled airports. 
Before the earthquake struck, almost all of the crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in rebel-controlled areas of northwest Syria was being delivered through just one crossing. Guterres announced on Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to open two more border crossings fro...