A year after the earthquake that devastated large areas of northwest Syria, many of those affected in the province of Latakia are about to run out of their aid and others have returned to homes at risk of collapse, hopeless in the face of the lack of progress in alternative housing programs.
After the earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey, which left 805 dead, 1,070 injured and more than 890,000 affected in Latakia, several international NGOs allocated cash amounts to around 800 families to cover rental expenses during the twelve months following the tragedy, a period that now ends.
“We are tenants who were given a rented house for a year, after a year where are we going?”, laments Muhammad Fawaz, resident in a humble neighborhood of Jableh, the hardest hit town in the province, by his statements.
“It’s 600,000 liras a month, who has the money to pay 600,000? The entire salary does not reach 200,000, do we have to just sit on the street?” adds the 75-year-old man.
Taking care of the rent on their own once the aid ends is impossible for many, since prices have risen around 200% throughout the country in the midst of a serious economic crisis and the problem especially affects areas hit by the earthquake.
hands tied
For Umm Muhammad, a resident of Jableh, just paying for food and school supplies for her three daughters is an absolute odyssey, so putting a roof over their heads will be out of reach, as she explains to EFE.
Many affected people like her often visit the province’s claims center and always carry papers proving the loss of their homes in the earthquake to approach any government official who passes through the neighborhood, regardless of their field of work.
Some show their documents to EFE and carefully put them back in their pockets, complaining loudly about how such an affected person benefited from the alternative housing plan “without deserving it” while others have been abandoned to their fate.
The Syrian government approved a loan program to help victims rebuild their homes, but the poorest believe it is unfair that residents in shanty towns were offered about $2,760 and the owners of homes that did not completely collapse in areas better urbanized get four times more.
Most of the buildings collapsed, in shanty towns
Most of the 105 buildings that collapsed in Latakia were located in shanty towns in Jableh or in the Palestinian neighborhood of Raml al Janoubi, south of the provincial capital.
Others affected directly decided not to take advantage of the loan plan due to the impossibility of returning the equivalent of about 200 dollars each month. The majority are civil servants with maximum salaries of about $16 and dreams of decent housing that they will never be able to fulfill.
In other villages further north of Jableh, such as Istamo, residents describe very similar situations.
According to what they told EFE, they have not yet received compensation for the damage that the earthquake caused to their vehicles, animals or businesses, properties that were their only form of income and that the authorities consider less priority than homes. That was relegated to another future phase of aid.
Uncompleted projects
The Public Safety Committee recognizes that approximately 45,000 families need support to deal with material damage to their homes, ranging from structural consolidation to restoration or even demolition.
However, various projects remain incomplete a year after the tragedy, such as one by the Emirati Red Crescent for the establishment of 1,000 prefabricated homes in seven locations in Latakia that so far only accommodate 47 families in Jableh and will soon accommodate 123 in Raml al Janoubi.
Another plan by the Syrian Government aims to offer 320 apartments to those affected, but so far the works have only progressed between 27 and 90% depending on the building, due to a series of obstacles such as the international sanctions that weigh on Syria, says the Committee .
Faced with this situation, some have decided to return to their old homes, ignoring the evacuation orders of the experts, who after the catastrophe declared many buildings uninhabitable due to the risk of them collapsing with any next low-intensity earthquake.
“Water drips when it rains, we have cracks in the ceiling and we put pots or plates so that the water does not fall on our heads. My dream is to live in a room that doesn’t have water or anything,” little Maryam, nine years old, tells Media.
