Why some Syrians feel forgotten: No tents, no relief.

(BBC) ⸻ The tents are close to the border wall between Syria and Turkey, and those living there may have been displaced by the country's civil war. The earthquake, untroubled by international borders, has brought havoc to both countries, but the international relief effort has been thwarted by checkpoints. In southern Turkey, thousands of rescue workers are working to find survivors, while in opposition-held north-west Syria, none of this is going on. The homes in Bsania, in Syria's Idlib province, were newly built and now more than 100 have gone, turned to aggregate and a ghostly white dust. Abu Ala's home was swallowed by the earthquake, and two of his children were killed. A bulldozer was able to find Wala', the 15-year-old girl, and buried her. Abu Ala', a deeply religious man, describes the search for his missing 13-year-old son, Ala'. He and his wife clung to olive trees as aftershocks rocked the hillside. The Syrian Civil Defence Force, also known as the White Helmets, did what they could with pickaxes and crowbars, but lack modern rescue equipment. The international community has blood on its hands, as no international aid teams have reached this part of Syria, which is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group that was once affiliated to al-Qaeda. Abu Ala' is now bereft, with no tents, no aid, nothing. He asks me if I have a tent, but we have nothing to give him. The 1.7m people living in the Bab al-Hawa area of Syria continue to oppose President Assad's rule, living in makeshift camps and newly built shelters. The international help that reaches this part of Syria is tiny, with only one ultrasound being provided to 350 patients in the immediate aftermath. At the end of the corridor, a tiny baby lies in an incubator, bruised and bandaged, and his small chest rises and falls thanks to a respirator. Doctors think he's around three months old. Both of his parents were killed in the earthquake, and a neighbour found him crying alone in the dark in the rubble of his home. The Syrian people have been forsaken many times and are angry that more help is not forthcoming. In the town of Harem, Fadel Ghadab lost his aunt and cousin and the UN has sent 14 trucks worth of aid. More aid has made it into Syria, but not much and it is too little, too late. In the absence of international rescue teams, children remove rubble and a man and two boys use a car-jack to prize apart the collapsed remains of a building. The day is ending and I have to leave, but my phone pings with a message from a Turkish rescuer telling me his team found a woman alive after 132 hours buried under her home. Behind me in Syria, there is only silence.