Humanitarian response to the Türkiye-Syria earthquake

Posted on 08 February 2023

Türkiye and Syria are experiencing a humanitarian crisis after last week's 7.8 magnitude earthquake which caused widespread destruction and fatalities, impacting 23 million people. It is now reported that the number of fatalities has exceeded 40,000 across both countries.

Syria was already in desperate need of aid due to huge numbers of displaced people and ongoing conflict. James Elder, spokesperson for UNICEF, says “It was already an emergency situation across northwest Syria where four million people receive humanitarian support.’

Locating and rescuing individuals, and supporting health systems, are key priorities of the humanitarian response effort. However, the severe damage to infrastructure and poor economic conditions means resources and communications are limited.

North-West Syria is feeling these effects severely - with only one entry route into the country, the UN is limited in its ability to give life saving assistance. Stéphane Dujarric, UN spokesperson for the secretary general, says the organisation is “working to rapidly scale up its assistance” in Syria and “explore all possible avenues for assistance.” The organisation has released $25 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund for Syria.

The Council for International Development's member organisations are liaising with partners in-country to establish how best to support response and recovery efforts. We will continue to update this page as we receive situation updates.

How you can support

CID member organisations are running appeals for donations to go towards response efforts (please let us know if your organisation is running an appeal)