How Did Qatar and Its Organizations Support the Victims of the Earthquake in Syria?

The Qatar Red Crescent, the Qatar Charity Organization, and Qatari and Arab volunteers who came from Doha played an urgent and important humanitarian role in northwestern Syria after the earthquake of February 6, 2023.

The Qatari humanitarian support contributed to easing the suffering of the afflicted Syrian opposition areas in the north of the country. Especially since the United Nations and international organizations left the region alone, facing the disaster without any intervention in the first days.

During a workshop in which the opposition Syrian National Coalition and the Interim Government participated in Istanbul, Turkiye, on February 24, 2023, Raed al-Saleh, head of the opposition Syrian Civil Defense Organization, nicknamed the “White Helmets,” thanked the countries, agencies, and organizations supporting Syria and Turkiye after the quake.

Al-Saleh especially thanked the State of Qatar, which he said in front of the audience that it “was the first country to respond to the disaster and provide support.”

He tweeted on February 19 saying that “all options to help the afflicted in northwestern Syria were available in the first hours of the earthquake, in light of the existence of a legal basis that gives it the authority to carry out cross-border operations without needing any authorization from countries or the Security Council, but it insisted on waiting to obtain the approval of the Assad regime without justification.”

The White Helmets is a humanitarian organization with 3,000 volunteers, including women. They met and began their work in 2013 to respond to the aerial and ground bombardment of Syrian cities and towns by the Assad regime.

In the aforementioned workshop, the Syrian Interim Government confirmed that 33 trucks from Qatar, in addition to a medical team, entered the northwestern regions of Syria as a response to the devastating earthquake disaster.

The First Air Bridge

On February 6, 2023, two earthquakes struck southern Turkiye and northern Syria, the first measuring 7.7 degrees and the second 7.6 degrees, as well as hundreds of violent aftershocks. They left thousands dead and wounded in both countries.

The earthquakes displaced about one million people, in northwestern Syria, outside the Assad regime’s control, out of 5 million people who were already suffering from a lack of aid and services before the quake.

During the first hours after the earthquake, Doha rushed to offer condolences and open a direct communication channel at the highest level with Turkiye. It also launched an air bridge to help the Turkish and Syrian peoples, the first air-bridge flights to the struck areas.

The Director of the Relief and International Development Sector at the Qatar Red Crescent, Mohamed Salah, revealed the contributions made by the organization to those affected by the earthquake in northern Syria.

He explained to Anadolu Agency on February 23 that the association provided urgent food aid to the affected people displaced in Syria, in cooperation with the Turkish Crescent, to a number of shelter camps since the second day of the earthquake.

He stressed that they first initiated “the establishment of camps and the adoption of a special budget for this matter, and in cooperation with the Qatar Fund for Development, we initially established 500 tents in Syria, and a shelter center for the Qatari Crescent will be established in partnership with its Kuwaiti and Turkish counterparts.”

He continued: “We approved the construction of 300 housing units inside Syria as a first stage to house the families affected by the earthquake, and this project will be launched.”

Salah pointed out that the Qatari teams that were sent to the Syrian interior were the first field medical group to arrive in the north of the country to provide help to the victims of the earthquake.

He described the situation in northern Syria as “tragic” and said: “The intervention, whether from the United Nations or humanitarian organizations, was not as required.”

He pointed out that “the number of organizations operating in the field was very small compared to the disaster and the great need inside Syria.”

Qatari relief and charitable organizations also announced the launch of urgent campaigns to collect donations, support the afflicted in Turkiye and Syria, and provide them with the necessary aid and supplies.

The government’s Qatar Fund for Development announced that it is providing support for the ongoing White Helmets civil defense operations to rescue and relieve the earthquake victims in Syria.

Urgent Projects

A convoy of humanitarian aid provided by Qatar entered through the Bab al-Hawa crossing north of Idlib on the Turkish border to help those affected by the earthquake in northwestern Syria on February 16. It included several trucks of foodstuffs, medical supplies, and blankets and was considered the largest since the day of the disaster.

Hashem Darwish, director of programs at the Qatar Red Crescent, confirmed that the organization is seeking, through continuous meetings with the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and all partners in northwestern Syria, to distribute aid fairly to all the afflicted.

He indicated that the Red Crescent had sent medical teams through the first air bridge that Qatar launched to perform qualitative surgeries in northern Syria for those affected by the earthquake.

Darwish, from the city of Idlib, pointed out that there is a significant shortage of equipment, stressing that medical equipment will be sent to repair the gaps in the health system in northwestern Syria.

The Qatar Red Crescent also announced a project to build 300 model housing units for those affected by the northern Syrian earthquake, with an area of 60 m2.

Each unit consists of two rooms, a hall, a kitchen, and a bathroom, at the cost of $2,750 per unit, with basic services and facilities. Qatar Red Crescent opened the door for donations on its website to help the afflicted in northern Syria.

As for Qatar Charity, it responded in turn during the first days of the earthquake and went to northern Syria, accompanied by Arab media professionals and social media influencers. It invited them to join the team at the heart of the event to convey the true picture of the afflicted.

Qatar Charity is one of the largest and leading non-governmental charitable organizations in the Gulf. It was established in 1992 in order to develop Qatari society and needy communities.

Qatar Charity launched an urgent relief campaign and directly distributed 27,000 hot meals to the affected equally between the two countries.

The organization stated, in a statement, that its convoy moved from Doha towards the affected areas, containing 4 trucks, including medical supplies, clothes, and foodstuffs.

The statement added that it is preparing a plan worth 21.9 million riyals ($6 million), which includes an urgent response worth 7.3 million riyals ($2 million) and early recovery and reconstruction projects worth 14.6 million riyals ($3 million and 800 thousand).

Qatar Charity also shipped 13 tons of foodstuffs and nearly 4,000 blankets via the air bridge operated by the State of Qatar.

Qatar Charity and the Qatar Red Crescent obtained licenses for new relief projects in northern Syria after the earthquake as a project for an integrated residential area for the affected displaced persons.

According to the official spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the beneficiaries of the supplies of Qatari charities inside Syria have exceeded one million and 300 thousand people.

Qatar decided, in light of the urgent needs in Turkiye and Syria, to ship cabins and mobile homes to the two countries that were used to accommodate fans during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 to provide immediate support to shelter survivors who lost their homes, a high-ranking Qatari official told AFP hours after the devastating earthquake.