Greater Boston supporting Turkey, Syria following devastating earthquake

As the death toll has soared past 20,700 in Turkey and Syria since Monday’s catastrophic 7.8-magnitude earthquake, a strong desire to support the two shattered countries has grown in Greater Boston.

But some community members leading relief efforts here are concerned that donations won’t make it across the ocean to help the tens of thousands affected by one of the deadliest earthquakes worldwide in more than a decade.

Those attending a Thursday evening prayer service at St. Matthew Syriac Orthodox Church in West Roxbury signed a letter urging the Bay State’s delegation to support the lifting of U.S. sanctions against war-torn Syria, which constrain American financial support and humanitarian relief efforts.

Razek Siriani, a leader at St. Matthew Syriac Orthodox Church, moved to Boston in 2013 with his family as they fled Aleppo, a fierce battle zone in an ongoing civil war. Though fighting halted for the most part in 2016, Aleppo is just 70 miles southeast of where the earthquake hit in Turkey.

It took hours Monday for Syriani to “somehow” get in touch with his friends and family who remain in Aleppo, free of injury. However, they have nowhere to go for food, water and clothes, Siriani told the Herald.

The quake-damaged area in Syria is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, surrounded by government forces and borders Turkey.

The U.N. Security Council in 2014 authorized aid deliveries to opposition-held parts of Syria from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan through four border crossings. But that has shrunk over the years to just one, amid opposition from Russia.

“It has nothing to do with politics, it has nothing to do with what we like or dislike,” Siriani said of the sanctions against Syria. “This is a humanitarian issue … People are dying, people are suffering.”

With Syria’s parliament calling for the immediate lifting of Western-led sanctions on Syria, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres insisted that “no sanctions of any kind interfere with relief to the population of Syria in the present.”

A  U.N. aid convoy crossed from Turkey into Syria’s rebel-held northwest Thursday for the first time since the earthquake. The U.N. has released $25 million of its own money so far.

The U.S. is the leading donor of humanitarian assistance for Syria, reaching more than 6.6 million people per month inside the country.

The Massachusetts Council of Churches had a special offering during Thursday’s prayer service in West Roxbury to support humanitarian relief efforts. Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley has requested a special collection be taken next weekend in all parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston.

“That money will not matter if it cannot get through. That’s why we need our elected officials to speak forcefully in lifting the sanctions,” said Rev. Laura Everett, executive director of the Council of Churches.

Turkish immigrant Cenk Emre is leading a large-scale relief effort for Turkey at Freerange Market, an ethnic food service he has owned for three years. He said some roads in his home country are cracked up and dislocated which challenges the transport of goods.

Within four hours after learning about the earthquake Monday, Emre mobilized local volunteers, filling up two truckloads of goods and emergency supplies to be shipped to his home country via Turkish Airlines. By Thursday afternoon, more than 15 truckloads had been filled.

“This really has been a humanitarian effort across different cultures in the Boston area,” Emre said. “It’s just an extremely fulfilling effort.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report