Given the many years of war and the economic collapse of Syria, the organization already had projects in place and partners on the ground in cities such as Aleppo and Lattakia, which have considerable Christian communities and which were badly affected by the quake.
As Felipe d’Avillez reported; The most important project, however, has to do with helping people get back to their homes as quickly as possible. For this, however, it is necessary for the houses to be surveyed by engineers, to make sure there is no risk of collapse.
Fortunately, according to Xavier Stephen Bisits, the nine different Christian churches that are present in Aleppo have an excellent working relationship and have already taken the lead in this respect.
“On Wednesday night the Synod of Catholic bishops met in Aleppo and assembled a team of engineers who are going to start assessing the damage to the houses of the Christian families, and the approximate cost to repair each one, and this is something I hope ACN can help with, and we fully expect to be able to do it in a very professional way. The Orthodox bishops will also be engaged and send representatives or participate in these discussions to make sure our help includes all the Churches.”
Finally, ACN is also in touch with the Joint Committee of Aleppo, a body representing all Churches, to help fund a project to cover the costs of renting houses for the families whose buildings suffered more extensive damage, or were destroyed, and who will have to wait weeks, if not months, to find a new home or move back to their own, when restored.
The earthquake in Syria can best be described as a tragedy within a tragedy. More than a decade of war, along with a pandemic and more recently a crushing financial crisis, had already left the population in despair. To many, the earthquake felt like the last straw.
However, there have been some unexpected consequences as well, and some Syrians say that they are seeing demonstrations of unity and solidarity that had not been witnessed since the beginning of the war.
Because of the difficulty of access for international organizations to Syria, much of the aid at this point seems to be locally directed: Syrians who themselves are living in poverty gathering whatever resources they can to help other Syrians. “After 12 years of war, people had been unable to give much, but now all the people are donating for the displaced.”
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