Fourteen trucks with humanitarian aid from the United Nations have crossed the Bab el Hawa pass from Turkey and into the Syrian city of Idlib. It is the second convoy to enter this territory ruled by jihadists and Syrian rebel militias but, as in the case of the previous one, six trucks that entered on Thursday, it does not carry rescue material but tents, blankets, warm clothes and for the rain and heating systems for some 16,000 people, said Paul Dillon, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN agency.

On Thursday, disappointment spread in Iblib when it was verified that the first convoy did not contain the materials that the rescuers expected, but rather the help that arrives more or less periodically, and that it was held up as the Turkish highway that leads to the city was affected by the earthquake. Bab el Hawa. “We are disappointed, we are desperate for equipment that will help us save lives under the ruins,” said a statement from the White Helmets, which these days have been clearing up practically bare hands.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mehvut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday that he was working for the opening of two more crossings into Syria, and that they remain closed due to pressure from Russia in favor of the Syrian regime. The UN is calling for the reopening of the Bab Salam border crossing, which was closed a year ago due to Russian pressure in the UN Security Council in favor of the Syrian regime.

For its part, the Autonomous Administration of northern Syria, that is, the territory that the Kurds call Rojava, unsuccessfully tried to bring aid to Afrin, a little further north, an area occupied by Turkey and related Syrian militias, where apparently the city of Jinderis was 80% destroyed.

The politicization of assistance is being an added problem. Or at least this is the clear point of view of the Kurds. Those from Rojava denounce that the areas most affected by the tremor are mainly those inhabited by the Kurdish population, and that this population is being “invisible”. It must be added, however, that in the south and southeast of Turkey – in Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Kahramanmaras, right in the epicenter – there are also half a million Syrian refugees.

Little is known about the real situation in cities like Malatya, Van, Adiyaman or Diyarbakir. Kurdish media from Turkey and Iraq claimed that official aid had not arrived.

In Diyarbakir, a city of 250,000 inhabitants and about 250 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, the Sky News channel confirmed on Tuesday night the arrival of rescuers from the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, while all the work was being carried out by firefighters and volunteers without specialized equipment.

The Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has been denouncing that official help from the Ministry of the Interior’s emergency service has not arrived but that, instead, the government “is trying to prevent social and solidarity aid” in order to have a monopoly on attendance, according to spokeswoman Ebru Günay. It is the same type of protest that the social democratic party CHP formulates. Keep in mind that in May there are elections. But in the case of the Kurdish formation, it is also added that the threat of illegalization by the Constitutional Court hangs over it on the accusation of supporting terrorism. A month ago, the HDP lost the official grant.

The imminent decree of a state of emergency in the ten provinces affected by the earthquake for three months is clearly seen by the Kurds as an attempt to take advantage of the catastrophe to increase repression. President Erdogan, during a visit to Gaziantep yesterday, justified the state of emergency as a measure to prevent looting and to stop “those who try to abuse this process for political purposes.”