On 6 February 2023, a devastating earthquake impacted Turkiye and Syria. The destruction was enormous, and it took several days for the extent of the damage to become clear. In total, 57,759 people died across the two countries, with around 130,000 injured. Almost 18 million people were directly impacted. Here, a clear opportunity was presented for governments and the international community to put into practice the ‘humanitarian imperative’. This holds that the essential principle of responding to disaster and conflict is to prevent and alleviate human suffering, and that politics should not be allowed to hinder this endeavour. As a corollary, there are also increasing calls for greater recognition of the principles of dignity and autonomy in humanitarian response. Unfortunately, this terrible event and the responses to it were politicised.
There is a tendency in crisis response to treat conflict and disaster as separate fields. However, reconstruction following civil war and reconstruction following disaster have much in common. For both, the social and political rupture needs to be addressed, in addition to the physical destruction. Just as failing to address the causes of conflict is associated with renewed outbreaks of violence, failing to address hazard vulnerabilities can lead to continued disaster risks. Disaster and conflict are caused by complex interacting variables and tipping points and defy simplistic causal explanations. Many of these causal variables are structural and political, and form a complex interlocking set of vulnerabilities that reduce disaster resilience, but also hamper social development more broadly.
Turkiye was hit harder by this earthquake, but in many ways is better positioned to organise humanitarian recovery and reconstruction activities. Syria has been devastated by civil conflict since 2011, and state power has been contested and rule of law weakened. It has been said that “all disasters are political”, but adhering to the humanitarian imperative does not imply ignoring the political complexities. People’s survival and wellbeing should come first, before tackling the political conditions associated with disaster occurrence and conflict outbreak.
Three months after the earthquake, attention has turned to the longer-term reconstruction needs and how this process should be implemented. Post-conflict or post-disaster reconstruction is challenging enough, but this context faces additional complexities. President Bashar al-Assad has declared victory in the Syrian Civil War, but Idlib governorate is de facto controlled by Turkiye, and Kurdish groups have significant control over Northeast Syria. The range of armed groups operating across Northern Syria compounds the logistical challenges in securing humanitarian access and reaching the most affected populations. There is antagonism from different non-state actors who feel the humanitarian needs of their people were ignored during the conflict. Now, there appears to be a clear international mandate for earthquake assistance and reconstruction activities. Large numbers of disaffected (mostly young) men have been influenced by extremist ideologies, and feel excluded from mainstream state priorities and development agendas. These grievances have been deepened by perceived inequalities and hypocrisies in the post-earthquake environment, and by different levels of international support for the two countries.
A comprehensive reconstruction process must be sensitive to extremism, through understanding the priorities of young people whose educational and economic needs are vital, and without whom a durable peace process is unlikely. The 2023 earthquake has reignited international political concern about Syria, both for its own suffering and potential regional knock-on effects. The triple challenge in Syria is to formulate and implement earthquake recovery and reconstruction strategies that address hazard vulnerability and impact, civil conflict, extremism and power vacuums. Binary framings around deserving and undeserving victims are likely to deepen grievances, and may impede peacebuilding and reconstruction programmes.Whether addressing conflict, disaster or any other crisis, the humanitarian imperative should come first. Saving lives should take precedence over solving complex political problems, such as statebuilding, confronting extremism and reintegrating non-state actors (which are fraught, lengthy and challenging processes). By conflating humanitarian interventions with political and military interventions, the international community has missed opportunities to adhere to a coherent humanitarian prioritisation. Ensuring a robust and equitable reconstruction process in the region will involve sensitive understanding of the interlinked challenges in post-conflict environments, extremism and failed state dynamics, as well as seismic rehabilitation and earthquake-resistance building codes. But the humanitarian principle of saving people should be foremost.
Featured image: Earthquake (Flickr)
Chas Morrison
Chas Morrison is Assistant Professor for Research at the Institute for Peace and Security, Coventry University. His main research interests are around the social dynamics in crisis-affected environments, covering civil society and community actions, civilian protection and conflict legacies. He also researches participation, inclusion and leadership in post-disaster reconstruction. Before joining Coventry University, he worked for several years for humanitarian NGOs in East Africa and South Asia community reconstruction programmes after civil conflict and disaster.
