‘Life must go on’ in the rubble in Syria

The morning of February 6, millions of people lay asleep in an area along a faultline, separating two countries - southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria. In the early hours a magnitude 7.8 hits, the ground shakes and opens up, and buildings fall on top of each other like pancakes.

“It’s like something out of a horror movie,” says Corduff native Jennifer Brennan. Then two weeks later, a second earthquake strikes, this time measuring 7.5 on the Richter Scale. The regions hit are in Turkey, but also Syria, a country already decimated by civil war, 12 years of hunger, cold and the pandemic.

In Syria alone, the death toll rises to 6,000 people, with 12,000 families left homeless. The worst areas affected are Hama, Aleppo, Latakia and the rebel held area of Idlib.

Jennifer, who works at Indorama Ventures (formerly Wellmans) in Mullagh, travelled independently to deliver aid with a friend Auora from Belgium. They were granted a visa and clearance to enter Syria the week the earthquake hit.

Jennifer travelled to Syria on March 28, arriving back to Ireland on April 6.

“We had already decided to visit this country but then we decided to put the wheels in motion and take in as much aid as possible. It’s difficult getting aid into a country under US sanctions, and aid tends to be a big geopolitical card. All aid must come through government held areas. Trying to get aid into a rebel held area, is a ‘no go’ as Syria’s president Bashar Al-Assad isn’t exactly going to keep the people warm while also bombing them.”

In the weeks before their departure, Jennifer and her friend managed to collect 130kgs of baby supplies, food, soothers, hygiene, sanitary products, and school supplies. They also managed to raise €6,247, some of which was brought out by them in cash due to sanctions and the fact money cannot be transferred electronically to Syria. Much of the support she received came from people in Cavan, Monaghan and Meath.

Among those who donated were Mannon Castle Golf Club, Gifts n’ Things, Farney Print, Burn’s Bar in Shercock, and Mountain Dew, Corduff.

Jennifer flew to Beirut in Lebanon from where she and her friend were picked up and driven across the border into Damascus.

“The sun is only rising as we enter, so haven’t seen any signs of the war,” she says, although their driver has smuggled some gas for cooking as access to fuel continues to be a “massive problem”. It remains so.

Damascus, Jennifer says, is a “fairy-tale city” in the south of the country, with cobbled streets and spiralling minarets. “It’s something to behold,” she continues, until just 10 minutes away from the city, the scenes of destruction begin. “I’m nowhere near the earthquake zone yet.”

Among the ruins she sees washing hung out to dry on a makeshift line, cars parked, people’s homes. “Life must go on. It’s a country where the people are use to electricity for one hour in every five, most of the time, if it’s supplied at all.”

They spend the night in Homs, ‘home of the revolution’, now a city predominantly lying in ruins. “We visit one of the most important Medieval castles in the world. I’m still not in the earthquake zone.”

Their next stop is a four-hour journey to Aleppo - the ‘Jewel of Syria’.

The road there has only been safe to travel since 2019.

Nothing, Jennifer says, can prepare her for the “raw images” of UN tents appointed along the road, “town after town, village after village, shops, fuel stations, everything lying in rubble. This is what a civil war looks like. This was a crossroads of the merchants travelling the ‘Silk Road’. As we get closer to the city, the earthquake damage becomes evident. There’s colour in the buildings that are lying on top of each other. Someone has lived here recently.”

The once famous citadel in the city centre, flanked by a huge poster of Bashar Al-Assad, “which is everywhere you turn in Syria”, is now badly damaged and unsafe to enter. The famous Hotel Baron, iconic in the sense it was still operating until recently, is now emptied with cracks in its walls.

They pay for the truck full of food they’ve commissioned, and hire a kitchen for the day to make 4,000 biscuits for people in need. They’re assisted by war widows, or wives of husbands who have suffered horrific injuries. They are now the main breadwinners.

“The kitchen was in a private school for children who are deaf, run by an incredible couple and all self-funded. We made a donation to them as the government wants to evict them from the building next month as it’s needed. It was an amazing day and an honour to be in the company of such strong willed, independent women.”

Jennifer helps also to distribute formula, food, dummies, and gifts to these women, and later toys and school supplies with little groups of children they meet. “It’s all about the smiles at the end of the day. Some of these kids know nothing but war, and then the earthquake, it’s time they caught a break.”

Another donation was made to a school, for the amount of work they do for children, collecting them on buses and taking them to class and providing them with food.

They’re thanked for their efforts by none other than the Bishop of Aleppo, whose nephew lives in Dublin.

They also make a stop along our journey at the St Thecla Monastery in Maaloula to visit the religious sisters there. Their plight made headlines in 2013 after they were kidnapped and held captive in exchange for a huge ransom. They used to run an orphanage, but continue to provide for local children in need “so we donated to them, to help in any way possible”.

Throughout her trip Jennifer says it was “always in the back of my mind, the Syrian people who live beside me in Ireland, who can never go home, persecuted because they fled in the first place. Everyone just wants to survive. It must be heart-breaking knowing you can’t go back to your homeland.”

She says Syria is held together by the warmth of its ever welcoming people. “We were told to look beyond the war. People trying to survive, who are still afraid to sleep inside for fear of another earthquake.”