Since the earthquake destroyed her home, Syrian teacher Suzanne Abdallah has been living in a small truck crammed with her family members, just a stone’s throw from where her house stood.
“Ten of us piled into this truck. We slept sitting up,” said the 42-year-old, wearing several layers of clothing and a woolen scarf wrapped around his head against the winter chill.
Her infant son was sleeping in a makeshift hammock made of blankets that swung from the roof of the packed vehicle, as seven other children ate a basic breakfast inside.
“The situation is difficult, especially because I have a small child,” Abdallah said. “I woke up this morning and found his hands very cold, so I put them in the sun to warm them.
“We want shelter; we need help for the little ones.”
WATCH: A week after the earthquake in Syria
Abdallah and his family are among several million Syrians who have been left homeless, according to UN estimates, by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that also devastated large swaths of Turkey.
More than 40,000 people were killed in the two countries in the February 6 disaster that devastated entire districts, including in Abdallah’s hometown of Jindayris on the Turkish border.
Syrians have endured a brutal civil war for more than a decade, and many have fled to the rebel-held province of Idlib from other areas now under the control of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Survivors of the powerful earthquake in Syria began to gather in any place they could find, many sleeping in tents and vehicles, others around fires outside.
– ‘Life is tragic’ –
Abdallah’s father-in-law turned his vehicle into a makeshift home for his sons and their families, covering the top of the truck with blankets and carpets for extra insulation.
“Life in a car is difficult; we are two families,” Abdallah told AFP.
All around, many districts have been reduced to ruins, from which rescuers from the White Helmets group recovered more than 500 bodies.
Jindayris was one of the cities in Syria worst hit by the earthquake that killed more than 3,600 people in five Syrian provinces, with the highest death toll in Idlib and Aleppo.
Also read: Earthquake-hit Syrian city buries dead in farmland
Families here have been sleeping in schools, mosques and displacement camps or in basic shelters built in open spaces such as olive groves and public squares.
Across the city, the family of retired employee Abdelrahman Haji Ahmed and his neighbors are now living in makeshift tents pitched in the middle of damaged streets.
At night, the girls and boys huddled inside, under plastic sheets and blankets, while Ahmed and the other men slept under the stars.
“There is no electricity, no water, no sanitation,” he told AFP, his former home in ruins. “The whole family’s life is tragic.”
Ahmed held his young daughter, watched by other children, and said that now all his family needs is “one or two tents so that the family can rest.”
“Then we’ll see what to do next, but this is what we’re asking for now,” he said. “We don’t think about the future. The situation we’re in now doesn’t allow it.
– Syria’s tragedy ‘no longer acceptable’ –
Some international aid has arrived in Syria, including in a convoy of trucks crossing the Turkish border, but many here remain in dire need.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said shelter was one of the top priority needs, along with emergency food, heating and hygiene facilities.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF stressed the urgent need for “access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, which are essential to prevent disease” after the quake.
In another camp, on the outskirts of Jindayris, Khawthar al-Shaqi, 63, now lives with his daughter and grandson after spending the first four nights in the open.
Also read: Gift from the Giver comes to help Turkey and Syria after deadly earthquake
“We took refuge in camps where we could find shelter,” said Shaqi, who years ago fled his home town of Homs and says he now lacks the means to meet his most basic needs.
“We can’t buy bottles of water or clothes,” he said as small children played outside the tent. “If we want to go to the city, we don’t have transport or money.”
“The situation is no longer acceptable and we don’t know what to do with the children. Here we are sitting in the cold… We have nothing but God’s grace.”