Kieren Barnes, Syria Country Director, Mercy Corps:
Well, thanks, Geoff.
Our team is actually based in Northwest Syria. And it's probably one of the most vulnerable parts of this region. So there's very limited infrastructure in that part of Syria. So one of the biggest challenges today has simply been the electricity functioning, communication working, so that we can actually contact our teams that are on the ground and actually assessing what those needs are and how people have been impacted.
We're primarily looking at shelter as the immediate need, because, within Northwest Syria, a lot of the infrastructure is damaged, houses have collapsed, apartment blocks have collapsed. So people are without homes at the moment. So, shelter is the most immediate one. We are in probably the worst part of winter. The next few days are going to be extremely cold.
So we have that additional pressure on top. So, having a safe place to sleep, mattresses to sleep on, blankets, these kind of very basic, but immediate needs are for the next few days. I think, following that, there's going to be some other critical areas that we do need to look at.
And that will include things like the access to water. People who have been moving throughout the last 12 years of this conflict living in temporary shelters such as tents, they need water on a regular basis simply to survive.
Those water sources, we know, have been damaged through this earthquake. So, we need to find ways to find that water to bring it to those people, to maintain what is actually our regular work in Syria. So, I think those are going to be some key challenges and what we're going to be working on over the next few days and throughout the weeks ahead.
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