The New Humanitarian: “What lessons can be drawn from the international earthquake response in Syria?”

Today at The New Humanitarian, I have an article on why international aid was so slow to reach Syria's northwest after February's devastating earthquakes: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2023/08/14/what-lessons-can-be-drawn-international-earthquake-response-syria

It's been six months since a pair of deadly earthquakes hit southern Turkey and northwest Syria. After the quakes, it took days for international assistance to reach Syria's opposition-held northwest from Turkey – in that critical window of time, Syrians died. People are still debating why.

Much of the criticism has focused on the UN's supposed failures in responding to the disaster. But northwest Syria seems to have suffered largely because of its in-between, non-state status. The UN-led cross-border aid response in northwest Syria relied on a complex logistical operation in southern Turkey that proved acutely vulnerable to this type of disaster. And northwest Syria's de facto governing authorities, for their part, weren't able to avail themselves of international emergency response systems built for use by states. Foreign governments proved unwilling to send search-and-rescue teams into areas controlled by non-state armed groups, where those governments had no existing relationships and interlocutors.

The aftermath of February's earthquakes challenges the international emergency response system to better prepare for future disasters in areas that don't fit neatly in the international state system. And it raises more questions about the future of Syria's northwest, especially now that, as of July, the UN Security Council's exceptional mandate for cross-border assistance in Syria has ended. The cross-border humanitarian response is now changing, at a moment when needs inside the northwest are greater than ever.