Humanitarian crisis persists for survivors in Turkey, Syria after devastating earthquake
PBS NewsHourAUG 2023
Since the outbreak of Syria's civil war, Bashar al-Assad's regime has consistently made aid delivery more difficult and, in many cases, sabotaged the process altogether. Cross-border aid is one of the only effective ways of circumventing the government's malicious intentions and helping people affected by the devastating earthquake.
The Syrian government continues to tolerate aid deliveries into regions of Syria controlled by extremists. This runs directly against international regulations. Though the government wants to help all Syrians, the areas occupied by rebel forces take advantage of the cross-border mechanism to steal humanitarian aid for themselves and, at times, to sell it for higher prices.