UN aid chief: Humanitarian effort shifting to shelter, food, schooling

The phase of the rescue after the major earthquake struck Türkiye and Syria a week ago is now switching to shelter, food, schooling and psychosocial care, the UN aid chief said.

"What is the most striking here, is even in Aleppo, which has suffered so much these many years, this moment ... was about the worst that these people have experienced," Martin Griffiths said on Monday from the regime-held northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo that was a major front line in the Syrian civil war.

The February 6 earthquake struck a swathe of Türkiye and northwest Syria, a region partitioned by the 11-year-long war, including insurgent-held territory at the Turkish border and regime-held areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad.

Griffiths said the United Nations would have aid moving from government-held regions to the rebel-held northwest, a front line across which aid has seldom passed during the conflict.

Aid appeals would be issued for all the regions hit by the disaster, he added.

"We’ll have assistance moving from here into the northwest but the northwest is only one part of Syria ...it’s also very important that we take care of the people here," Griffiths said.

The death toll in Syria jumped on Monday to 4,581. 

The White Helments said that 3,167 people were killed in the opposition-controlled areas.

Meanwhile, regime media said 1,414 people were killed in the quake in the regime-controlled areas.

In Türkiye, the death toll has risen 31,643. 

Griffiths said he had heard of traumatic accounts of the disaster from survivors in Aleppo.

"People who lost their children, some of whom escaped, others stayed in the building. The trauma of the people we spoke t o was visible and this is a trauma which the world needs to heal," he said. 

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