Jadaris, Syria – In Jandaris, in northwestern Syria’s Aleppo province, residents struggled to find and pick up the remains of their lives amid piles of concrete and damaged metal.
Some wept as they sat on the ruins of their homes. Others set up tents for children among some olive trees.
Excavators removed the remains while people, armed only with shovels and picks, helped.
The Syrian civil war has already left its mark on residents and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have taken refuge in northwestern Syria, but the deadly earthquakes that have hit the region have greatly worsened their reality.
Many of the people Al Jazeera spoke to were displaced people struggling with a renewed sense of loss.
“I have been displaced for three years and live in Jandaris. The earthquake hit us on Monday and we lost many people including my sister, my nephew and my brother-in-law. Right now we are taking whatever we can find of our belongings,” said Louai Fares al-Khalaf, 36, from Bsaqla district.
More than four million people live in the rebel-held enclave in northwest Syria, where they are exposed to constant airstrikes and widespread poverty. They were hit hard by the earthquakes on February 6, which also shook Turkey to its core.
Many in the area lived in overcrowded tent settlements or buildings that had already been weakened by past bombings. The quake displaced many for a second or third time, forcing some to sleep outdoors as temperatures plummeted.
“I set up a tent among the olive trees and 17 of us will live in it. Me, my brother and our two families survived,” al-Khalaf said.