THE STRONG MEN

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As far as elections go, Turkey’s vote on 15 May is a critical one. Among the many issues on the election trail, the recent earthquake that ravaged parts of Turkey and Syria has been especially troublesome  for incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. At the time of going to press, polls suggested Erdoğan is still popular in quake-hit areas. However, a tardy aid response coupled with a fetish for control have undoubtedly led to more cracks in his power. Natural disasters are often turning points in history, and a litmus test of government performance.

Across the border in Syria, two other strongmen, President Bashar al Assad and his foe, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have run the northern district of Idlib into the ground. So when the earthquake struck on 6 February this year, at 4:17 am, with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, one was left guessing at images of destruction. Was that hollowed out building an outcome of the  earthquake or of twelve years of war?

While the earthquake’s epicentre lay in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, the cracks in the earth’s crust ran for hundreds of miles, through towns, cities and provinces that have long been associated with the war in Syria. Everything about those names was familiar to those tracking the civil war. The earthquake’s epicentre lay in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, where journalists from around the world once converged to report on war. The devastation it caused was multifold: from the cracked tarmac at Hatay International Airport, where the United Nations’ planes brought in aid that millions of Syrians desperately needed; to Aleppo, where rebels once bitterly fought the government, bringing Syria’s economic hub to its knees; and finally to Idlib, the last bastion of rebel control, the thorn in the Damascene rose.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, President Erdoğan declared a state of emergency in the country, rushing in the army while the international community sent aid. Thousands of lives were lost but thousands were saved, too. When charges were levelled against his ineffectual response, Erdoğan swiftly shut down Twitter for twelve hours.

Across the border, in North-Western Syria, the White Helmets, a volunteer civil defence group, made do with whatever little they had, calling for international support teams, and for heavy machinery to dig through the rubble. In the crucial seventy-two-hour window for saving as many lives as possible, no aid came through the four border crossings into Idlib, partly because of the infrastructural damage caused by the earthquake and largely due to the politics of war. As families heard the cries of their loved ones buried beneath the rubble, they desperately dug, sometimes with a hammer, and a torchlight on their phones. The stories and images out of Syria were a cruel reminder of a counter-insurgency tactic and the brutality of this war.

OF THE MANY tactics in the counter-insurgency playbook, the government and opposition have employed siege warfare where the rules are simple: encircle, starve, surrender and evacuate. The first siege was laid in 2012 in Darayya, in Western Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus by pro-government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. At first, water lines were cut, forcing residents to use unsanitary wells for both consumption and hygiene purposes. They denied the entry of food and the people were compelled to survive on harvest crops. Electricity was cut, critical medical supplies were limited. Then they dropped bombs. The siege lasted for three years until a local truce was reached in August 2016. Darayya was the first opposition area in Syria to submit to a forcible evacuation imposed by the Syrian government. About 8,000 rebel fighters and civilians were crammed into green buses that were sent off to the north, to the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib that comprised the last remaining rebel strongholds in the country.

This proved to be a winning strategy and Darayya became a blueprint for the Syrian government’s war effort. As the government reclaimed territory, the green buses were a sign of Assad’s victory. They pulled into Eastern Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) regained territory, village by village, town by town. With people bussed out, a new Syria was born, divided on ethnic and sectarian lines.

But not everyone was lucky enough to get a ride. Thousands of families fled on foot, through snowy hills under the cover of darkness to evade aerial bombing, taking refuge in olive groves and under trees. They carried what they could–blankets, bedding and cooking equipment. Homes were replaced with cinder blocks and tent canvas. They came from all over–from Homs in Western Syria, the city that was once known as the capital of the Syrian Revolution, to Maarat al Numan, a town in the north-west that had been besieged once before in 1098 CE during the First Crusade.

No matter how they left or where they came from, there was one rule: head north. Idlib became a sanctuary for the displaced, a safe house on the run for civilians and rebel fighters alike. The pre-war population doubled to about three million, many of whom have been made refugees several times over. On the streets of Idlib, you’ll hear accents from rural Damascus to Aleppo, from Homs to Daraa. While most are civilians, Idlib is also the last refuge for thousands of battle-hardened fighters and jihadists. This new demographic poses a grave challenge to the government of Bashar al-Assad and is a crisis of the government’s own making.

WHAT THEN OF Idlib? An oft-repeated promise made by Assad is that he will reclaim “every inch” of Syria. Twelve years of war have indicated that this is possible only when accompanied with a Russian bombing campaign. But there is little incentive for Moscow to get involved in the affairs of a far-off province. An attack will also tarnish relations with neighbouring Turkey, who will have to bear an influx of more refugees. Turkey already hosts 3.6 million, the world’s largest refugee-hosting country. With the green buses at their final destination, the people have nowhere to go.

Idlib is overburdened. Villages that once were home to 5,000 families accommodate 15,000 and residents in camps cry out for help. The sea of blue tents in the IDP camps stretches into the horizon. Here, people are desperate for shelter, food support, blankets–the most basic necessities struggle to get through. This is nothing new. The population of Idlib has lived hand to mouth for years together. But the scale of horror unleashed by the earthquake has left residents comparing it to a month-long regime offensive occurring in a single night.

While the government and the rebels have politicised every twist and turn of this long, bitter war, it is perhaps common sense to recognise that the earthquake is not war-as-usual. Crucial hours were lost as the government and rebels negotiated the terms of the arrival of aid and its allocation. While four borders could have allowed aid to flow in freely, the people were left to sleep in the open, in freezing temperatures. Cholera is rampant and so is hunger and poverty. The long, hard task of reconstruction still lies ahead.

An earthquake demonstrates the might of nature but the desperate situation on either side of the Turkey-Syria border reveals the callousness of strong men.