For the first time since last Monday's earthquake, Bashar al-Assad is addressing the Syrian people. The ruler admits that the government cannot deal with the aftermath of the disaster on its own. And in a perfidious way he connects the earthquake with the civil war it fueled.
In a television speech, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad made a grim connection between the earthquake disaster and the civil war in the country that he fueled. The consequences of the war, which has been going on for almost twelve years, have prepared the population for the earthquake, said Assad in his first television speech since last Monday's earthquake.
Assad has been brutally taking action against his own people in the war that has killed more than 350,000 people since 2011. He is accused of crimes against humanity, including the use of chemical weapons. "The war, which drained resources and weakened capabilities, gave Syrian society the experience to deal with the earthquake," Assad said.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 5,900 people have died in Syria alone since the earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border region more than a week ago. The number is likely to continue to rise, the salvage work is still ongoing. "Syria was not an earthquake region for two and a half decades and was not prepared for such an earthquake," Assad said. Dealing with the consequences would be beyond the capabilities of the government. "The scale of the disaster and the tasks we must take on are far greater than the resources available," he admitted. The emergency aid from allied countries helped to reduce the consequences of the earthquake.
Assad announced new measures to cushion the consequences. Syrian authorities have provided temporary shelters and a new relief fund is being set up to help the victims. The most important lesson from the disaster is that "we managed to weather the circumstances in our different areas," he said.
Syria's rulers rarely appear in public. Last week, he and his wife traveled surprisingly to the earthquake area and visited a clinic and a rubble field, among other things.
