Helping the survivors of the earthquake in Syria will be a monumental task. Governments who want to relieve their plight face a horrible dilemma
The rebel-held enclave in north-west Syria was hit hard by this month’s earthquakes. On February 13th the United Nations said that Bashar al-Assad had agreed to ease the passage of aid into the region. His decision, a full week after the quakes, came too late for those trapped under the rubble for want of fuel and heavy machinery: they were already dead.
The north-west is controlled by Islamist rebels, some of whom belonged to al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate. In Mr Assad’s telling, the area is a hive of terrorists. In truth most of its 4m people are destitute civilians, displaced time and again from other parts of Syria. But the regime’s motives are hardly benevolent. It is struggling to respond to devastation in its own areas, and has tried to blame a convenient scapegoat: the West. “All we want from Europe and thenow is to lift sanctions,” Bouthaina Shaaban, a presidential adviser, said soon after the quakes. “If they lift sanctions, the Syrian expatriates and the Syrian people will be able to take care of their country.
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