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'Crisis within a crisis': Up to 5.3M in Syria may be homeless after quakes

UN says 5.37 million people affected by quakes will need shelter assistance, saying the crisis has hit a population "already suffering mass displacement."

AFP

Musa Hmeidi, 6, who was pulled out alive from rubble of a collapsed building on February 10, is pictured hours after he was rescued in opposition-run town of Jindayris.

Up to 5.3 million people in Syria may have been made homeless by the devastating earthquakes which rocked the region this week, a United Nations official said.

"As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquakes," the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sivanka Dhanapala, told a press briefing on Friday.

He said the UN estimated that 5.37 million people affected by the quake will need shelter assistance across the country.

"That is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement," he said.

"For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis. We've had economic shocks, Covid and are now in the depths of winter."

Death toll rises in Syria

Quake survivors have flocked to camps set up for people displaced by nearly 12 years of war from other parts of Syria.

Many lost their homes or are too scared to return to damaged buildings.

Nearly 24,000 people have died across Türkiye and Syria because of the quakes, one of the worst disasters to hit the region in around a century.

The quake killed more than 3,500 in Syria, according to health ministry figures and a rescue group.

The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and militants.

Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes, with many seeking refuge in Türkiye.

SOURCE: AFP