Dr. Bachir Tajaldin, Turkey country director at the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), told CNN’s This Morning about the difficulty of providing aid to Syria.
“The situation in Turkey is coordinated through a very well developed government. They have infrastructure, they have rescue teams,” Tajaldin said.
“In northern Syria, most of the services are provided by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and through humanitarian aid. There is no central government to take care of the multi-sectoral response,” he said.
SAMS is one of the many organizations providing relief in the region. This has been made harder after “the previous 12 years of crisis in Syria,” Tajaldin said. Attacks on civilian infrastructure and the absence of investment left northwestern Syria particularly vulnerable to this disaster.
“Yesterday we evacuated two maternity hospitals because of the physical impact of the earthquake on the infrastructure,” Tajaldin added.
