Humanity Can’t be Divided: Turkey-Syria Earthquake Exposes the Western Bias

By Mohammad Youssef

The natural disaster represented by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit both Turkey and Syria and led to the killing and wounding tens of thousands of people in both countries have given an alarming signal about how much degraded and inhumane the West is.

Day after day the Western hypocrisy, double standards and inconsistency reveal themselves in the meanest way, especially through the way they deal with the Syrian catastrophe.

The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake stands above 16,000, and the numbers are expected to increase as time passes.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a disaster zone in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.

Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation

The number of those injured there rose to 37,011, the agency said, adding that more than 79,000 personnel were engaged in search and rescue operations on the Turkish side of the border.

Syria’s death toll has climbed to at least 3162, and Turkey’s has hit 14014.

Even in the wake of this devastating earthquake, the US and EU continue to refuse to lift the sanctions imposed on Damascus which prevent Syrians from receiving direct aid from many countries.

The Westerners, who show extreme generosity when they pay money to many of the corrupt NGOS, are indifferent to the suffering of the Syrian people who are lying under the rubbles and debris of their destroyed homes.

The tight siege by the US government against Syria represented by Caesar Act continues to exert its unjust pressure and deny innocent people their basic rights of life and salvation.

By blackmailing governments and preventing them from taking the initiative to send the help, food and medical supplies to Syria, Washington is exacerbating the already dire situation there.

So many countries of the world have launched air bridges and sent aid to Turkey, while very few countries dared to challenge the American siege.

Among the first governments to respond and send help were Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman and Qatar.

It is very shameful how the Western governments deal with the suffering of Syrian people when they keep presenting themselves as the guardians of dignities and human rights.

All efforts should be mounting by governments and lobbyists to break the siege against Syria completely.

The US-imposed hegemonic policies should be challenged and sabotaged once and for all.

A campaign of condemnation and awareness should spread all over to make people alert and sober about the true nature of the Western criminal policies.