"The status quo cannot be acceptable," Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy to Syria, told reporters in Geneva.
The catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria last month, killing more than 50,000 people, provided a "wake-up call to the world that the Syrian tragedy is far from over," he said.
The quake came nearly 12 years into Syria's civil war which has devastated swathes of the country, killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions more.
In northwest Syria, where nearly 6,000 people were killed by the February tremor, the immensity of the earthquake tragedy helped shift long-stuck positions to facilitate getting aid into rebel-held areas in the northwest of the country.
More border crossings were opened to facilitate aid shipments from Turkey, and efforts were made to crank up aid deliveries from government-held areas into the rebel-held northwest.
The United States and the European Union have also eased sanctions to ensure the aid could flow in unencumbered.
Pedersen hailed that "in the aftermath of the earthquakes, humanitarian steps from all sides have moved beyond previous positions, even if temporarily."
"A month ago, there was no prospect of the opening of more border crossings nor of moves to ease sanctions in a concrete way. We have seen both moves now," he pointed out.
What is desperately needed now, he said, is for "the same logic that was applied on the humanitarian front to now be applied on the political level."
"The earthquake in itself has shown that positive steps are possible if there is a political will."
Pedersen, who has for years been trying to make progress with a so-called constitutional committee for Syria with little success, warned though that the current geopolitical situation was not ideal for moving forward.
Last July, he had to indefinitely postpone a meeting of the committee after Moscow balked at it being held in Switzerland, which had imposed sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine.
"The international climate today may make a comprehensive solution impossible," Pedersen acknowledged.
"As long as the Russians don't want to come to Geneva, the Syrian government does not want to come to Geneva," he said, adding that he had had "months of discussions" with both and hoped "we will be able also to see progress on this file."
Pedersen insisted that "we can make progress".
"But then we need to see from all sides a willingness to compromise and to move forward in a more serious manner."
Syria child quake victims, flown to UAE, unaware of heartbreak to come
Abu Dhabi (AFP) March 9, 2023 -
Cradling a pink stuffed animal as she sleeps in a United Arab Emirates hospital, a nine-year-old Syrian earthquake survivor is recovering from the wounds that nearly claimed her life, believing her mother is still alive.
Sham Sheikh Mohammed, who suffered severe crush injuries in a 40-hour ordeal under the rubble, has not yet been told that both her mother and sister died in the February 6 earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Syria and Turkey.
"I tell her that her mother is in critical care and that her condition is difficult," said her father, Mohammad, who has barely slept since Sham and his 15-year-old son, Omar, were taken from Syria's rebel-held northwest to Turkey and then flown to Abu Dhabi for emergency medical treatment.
Sham's story captivated Syrians and others around the world after a viral video showed her humming a tune with the White Helmets rescue group that worked for six hours to free her.
She and her brother are among 12 Syrian quake survivors who were flown by the UAE for specialist care for their crush injuries in Abu Dhabi.
Doctors at the Burjeel Medical City hospital say they have "controlled" life-threatening infections in her lower limbs, without commenting on whether they were forced to amputate.
"Sham's condition is stable," said her father, also declining to give further details.
Sham's survival encapsulated the tragedy, hope and heartbreak of the 7.8-magnitude quake that levelled buildings across Turkey and parts of Syria last month.
After her rescue in the town of Armanaz, in Idlib province, captured global attention, the UAE dispatched a medical aircraft to fly her and Omar to Abu Dhabi from Istanbul.
"Both children are now recovering well," their doctor in Abu Dhabi, Michael Uglow, said in a statement last week.
But Sham is not the only young survivor who will soon face a harrowing revelation.
- 'We told her everyone's alive' -
In a nearby hospital, Israa al-Abdullah receives routine updates on her medical condition but no news on the fate of her family.
Like Sham, the 17-year-old from the Syrian government stronghold of Jableh was rescued after spending hours trapped in rubble.
She has injuries to her skull, pelvis and shoulder and nerve damage in her eyes, said her brother Mohammad, a Syrian army soldier who was in Damascus when the quake hit.
What Israa doesn't know is that her parents and four other siblings all died in the earthquake, along with a brother's wife and daughter.
Israa, her 12-year-old sister and one nephew were the only survivors.
"We told her that everyone is alive," said Mohammad, closing the door of Israa's hospital room so she couldn't overhear.
Israa asks most about her mother, her sister Ghufran as well as her young niece Jana -- all of whom were killed, Mohammad said.
"I tell her I don't have phone credit in the UAE" when she asks to speak to them, he told AFP at the Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City hospital.
- 'My son died hungry' -
Hooked to monitors and an intravenous drip, Israa pants heavily but can barely speak. The nerve damage has left her cross-eyed and suffering from impaired vision.
Doctors say she will likely make a full recovery, according to Mohammad. But until she improves, the truth about her family will remain a secret.
"I buried my family members one after the other," Mohammad said. "I can't tell (Israa) anything until God cures her and she can get up on her own two feet."
In a nearby room, Ali Yussef Remmo, a displaced Syrian from the countryside of Latakia province, is receiving treatment for injuries in his lower limbs.
The father of three has regained partial leg mobility and is confident that he will walk again. But he is plagued by the loss of his youngest son and his wife, who was two months pregnant when their building collapsed.
The hardest part of being in an Emirati hospital, he said, is receiving platefuls of food, knowing he couldn't afford dinner for his family the day the tremor took their lives.
"My son died hungry," he said, tears swelling in his eyes.
"When I come to eat chicken, or meat, or an apple or a biscuit, I think that my 10-year-old was deprived of all of these things."
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