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No Alternative Housing for Aleppo Residents Affected by the February Earthquake

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People whose homes were damaged nine months ago in the devastating February 6 earthquake are still struggling to secure other housing amidst delays in implementing government housing projects. The earthquake caused the complete collapse of 53 buildings in the city of Aleppo, along with cracks and partial collapses in hundreds of other buildings. Over the past months, the governorate of Aleppo has worked on demolishing hundreds of buildings at risk of collapse.

The government designated two sites for permanent housing projects for those affected by the February 6 earthquake in Aleppo: one in the Haydariyah district and the other in the Masaraniya suburb east of the city. Work is still ongoing on these projects, and it does not seem that they will be completed soon.

 The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, aligned with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, have undertaken to install about 450 prefabricated temporary homes for the earthquake victims in Jabrin, Aleppo. However, it appears that the local pro-Iranian militias are only distributing these homes to the families of their members.

Umm Ibrahim, an elderly woman, lives in an apartment in a five-storey building in the Sulaimaniyah neighbourhood in central Aleppo. During the February 6 earthquake, the building did not collapse but suffered cracks. Umm Ibrahim and her neighbours immediately left the building and did not return, fearing it could collapse due to aftershocks.

Fifteen days later, the Construction Safety Committee affiliated with Aleppo’s Municipality inspected the building where Um Ibrahim lived and found it at high risk of collapse. They decided to demolish it. The committee allowed the building’s residents to remove their belongings within 24 hours before closing and demolishing it. Umm Ibrahim was unable to remove most of her apartment’s furniture due to her advanced age and inability to afford a work crew to remove the furniture. The Aleppo Municipality did not help Umm Ibrahim or any of the affected residents in the city to remove their belongings from the buildings classified as high risk.

Indeed, work teams from Aleppo Municipality demolished Umm Ibrahim’s building after 24 hours. The municipality did not provide Umm Ibrahim or any former building residents with any alternative housing, nor did it offer them a place in the shelters opened for people impacted by the quake. Umm Ibrahim, unable to afford to rent a house, chose to move to her relatives’ home.

At the beginning of October, news spread in Aleppo that the city council had begun moving people to temporary and alternative housing. Following this news, Umm Ibrahim visited the Aleppo City Council office to inquire if she was included. She did not receive an answer to her question, with staff reportedly telling her: “We don’t know anything.”

Saeed, who lived with his family in Aleppo’s Bustan Al-Basha neighbourhood, had to leave their home in 2015 after a shell fell on it, causing significant damage. They moved to an incomplete and unfinished house owned by Saeed in the same neighbourhood. The family stayed in the new house until the February 6 quake, when the building cracked and was deemed dangerous and at risk of collapse by the Construction Safety Committee. Without any alternatives, Saeed, his family, and the other residents agreed to bribe the committee to issue a report stating the building was repairable. Each apartment owner in the building paid SYP 1.5 million to the committee, and the final report noted that the building was not dangerous and could be repaired.

In contrast, Mohammad, a trader with two shops in Aleppo’s old market, tells a different story about the official response to the earthquake disaster. He says that the market restoration project had started before the earthquake. However, the plan put forth by the Syria Trust for Development, an NGO headed by Syrian First Lady Asma Al-Assad, remained unchanged. The Trust did not consider the people who lost their homes in the old market and continued to work on restoring the commercial shops. Mohammad explains that restoring the market is a priority because it serves the interests of traders close to the regime while ordinary residents’ properties are neglected. The authorities are encouraging traders and industrialists to return.

Mohammad adds that Aleppo’s industrialists and traders are concentrated in the city’s western neighbourhoods, isolating themselves from the rest of the population in the eastern neighbourhoods. Their areas were not subjected to significant destruction during war or the earthquake. He says the Syrian authorities expect these traders and industrialists to provide alternative housing for those affected by the earthquake. However, many of them have not agreed to these plans, fearing their donations will end up in the pockets of officials, and no serious housing project for the affected will materialise.

Salma, a woman in her forties working in the public sector, lived with her husband and four children in the Bustan Al-Basha neighbourhood. Their home collapsed in the February 6 earthquake shortly after they had fled from it. Salma says she was fortunate, as some of their neighbours perished. She mentions that after spending days on the street, they went to one of the shelters in Aleppo but couldn’t bear to stay there more than one night due to overcrowding, poor services and lack of cleanliness. Like other affected people from Aleppo, the family then moved to the city of Homs and lived in an unfinished home on the city’s outskirts. This new house was in a makeshift area with no paved streets and an incomplete sewage system.

Salma states that living in an unfinished house was better for them than staying in the shelter. Initially, they received help from sympathetic locals in Homs, including blankets, mattresses, money and food. However, this assistance gradually decreased until it entirely stopped. The family had registered themselves on the list of those affected by the quake. However, they only received aid from official entities in the first few months after the earthquake.

The family lives in the unfinished house in Homs, along with many other displaced families from Aleppo. They have no news about the possibility of obtaining any future housing or financial compensation. Salma says she doesn’t know how the family will get through this winter in a house without windows or doors.

Engineers’ Syndicate Recommends Amending Building Code after Earthquake

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The Syrian Arab Code Committee in the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate recently issued its recommendations regarding developing a code for constructing earthquake-resistant concrete buildings. This was based on a study of the causes and consequences of the earthquake on February 6, 2023.

The Syrian Arab Code for the design and implementation of reinforced concrete structures is an urban construction system for designing and implementing buildings to achieve acceptable safety in construction. Engineers and building contractors must apply this code in their design studies when seeking construction permits. The Engineers’ Syndicate and administrative units oversee compliance with the code during various construction phases.

Syria’s prime minister formed joint committees in the four governorates most affected by the February 6 earthquake, Aleppo, Lattakia, Idlib and Hama, to assess the conditions of collapsed and damaged buildings. These committees, known as the Quintuple Committees, consisted of five members each: the head of the General Company for Engineering Studies (GCES) branch, the head of the Studies Department in the Technical Services Directorate, a representative from the Engineers’ Syndicate, a university representative, and a representative from the Contractors’ Syndicate. These committees visited the sites of damaged buildings, reviewed their structural studies, and conducted tests on the resistance of concrete and reinforcement steel and soil properties at the sites. They prepared extensive reports outlining the causes of collapses and cracks.

The reports indicated that the damaged buildings were not designed or executed according to the building code, with most collapses and cracks due to poor implementation and lack of soil tests. However, this conclusion is inaccurate, as many of the buildings designed and executed according to the Syrian code for construction collapsed, especially in the city of Lattakia.

Based on these reports, the Syrian Arab Code Committee met and issued its latest report, which the Council of the Engineers Syndicate ratified. Although the Code Committee affirmed that the current code requirements were sufficient to resist earthquakes, it decided to continue developing the code and its appendices. This decision came in response to what the committee described as directives from the Council of Ministers on the necessity of code development in coordination with the National Center for Earthquakes to update Syria’s seismic maps, making the code compliant with the latest global expertise.

However, the recommendations of the Code Committee implicitly acknowledge shortcomings in the code regarding soil mechanics, reinforced concrete, foundations, shear walls, and reinforced steel. Among these, the recommendations emphasize the necessity of conducting at least two soil tests at the construction site after excavation: the first at a depth of no less than five meters below the basement level to determine the soil type and the second at a depth ranging from 15 to 30 meters below the foundation level to determine the required foundation depth unless a rock layer is reached at a depth of five meters across the entire site.

The recommendations also include increasing the cross-section of reinforcement steel bars and the required quantity of reinforcement steel in concrete buildings. Every building taller than five storeys should consist of a shear wall in each direction, with symmetry maintained wherever possible. A shear wall is a load-bearing wall made of reinforced concrete built to the full height of the building.

The recommendations stipulate that no additional storeys be allowed on any existing building unless the building was originally designed to accommodate the extra height as per its granted permit. Even in this case, the administrative unit and the Engineers’ Syndicate must issue a structural, technical report proving that the building’s condition can withstand the additional storeys. It is important to note that property owners can modify the construction permit and increase the number of storeys if an engineering structural report confirms that the building’s foundations could bear the required additional weight, with the approval of the relevant municipal departments.

The recommendations emphasise the need to intensify tests conducted on high-strength reinforcement steel used in construction and prohibit cladding any building before issuing a technical report confirming its structural safety. This is partly a consequence of the impact of the lengthy duration of many construction projects and the long time gaps between construction and cladding phases. which weaken the buildings’ earthquake resistance. Construction can span decades, particularly for public sector projects, which lead the concrete structure of the built unit to remain exposed and unprotected from the weather for long periods.

The Code Committee also referred to a set of issues that were discussed in its meetings but have not yet been decided upon. Among these issues are studying seismic maps through a joint committee from the Syndicate, the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria, the Higher Institute for Earthquakes, and the National Center for Earthquakes, to review and develop the current seismic maps in coordination with the Syrian Arab Code Committee.

Additionally, there is a focus on securing and using seismic measurement devices and expanding their usage to include the study of most construction sites. This also involves expediting the soil classification for various sites and securing equipment that assists in this process, to use the results in designing earthquake-resistant buildings. The report proposed to form a committee in each branch to review soil reports.

It also emphasises the importance of meticulous study and quality control through highly qualified engineering supervision, achieving the technical specifications of the used materials, increasing the stages of review during the project, and prohibiting the construction of additional storeys before ensuring the quality of the structural elements in the lower storeys, both in terms of steel and concrete.

There is a stress on the necessity of certifying any new building by a qualified technical committee, and this committee should verify the correctness of the implementation and conduct some possible tests. Solutions need to be found for addressing violations, narrow streets, and construction on geological faults and agricultural lands, as they are extremely dangerous and prone to collapse in the event of an earthquake.

Notably, the committee asked the Syndicate’s Council to issue a circular to prevent the use of recycled and locally manufactured reinforcement bars that do not meet the code requirements. These bars are made from iron pulled from debris, re-melted, reshaped and sold in the local market.

These observations implicitly indicate the existence of shortcomings in the code’s implementation procedures. The seismic maps are not accurate, as pointed out by many engineers who spoke with The Syria Report after the earthquake, and there is a lack of precise seismic measurement devices. The committee acknowledges the existence of shortcomings in the review of structural studies and the follow-up of the reviewers’ recommendations, in addition to the inaccurate execution of structural studies and deficiencies in the inspection, evaluation and testing procedures before and during the project implementation.

Earthquake Workshops: Supporting Livelihoods Instead of Housing the Affected

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In recent days, the Ministry of State for the Development of the Southern Region has held workshops in the governorates affected by the February 6, 2023 earthquake, with representatives from various institutions, government agencies, chambers of commerce, industry, and tourism, and operations rooms in those governorates in attendance. The workshops discussed the stages of implementing the “National Action Plan for Dealing with the Earthquake’s Repercussions: People First,” established by the Council of Ministers on February 25.

Also in attendance were governors, executive office members in the concerned governorates, and directors of public institutions and companies focused on supporting livelihood projects for the earthquake-affected communities. In contrast, there appears to have been a decline in discussions about permanent government housing projects and temporary housing projects for the victims, which seem to still be in the process of being implemented more than nine months after the disaster.

Additionally, issues of documenting real estate ownership in informal settlements are still stagnant, with practical difficulties in implementing the executive instructions of Decree No. 3 of 2023. The decree grants tax exemptions to earthquake victims, some related to their entirely or partially demolished properties. One of the main difficulties is that most affected properties are unlicensed and located in unzoned areas, making it difficult for their owners to prove ownership. There are complex conditions for these property owners to obtain loans or tax exemptions to rebuild or repair their properties.

This delay in resolving the real estate problems caused by the earthquake poses an obstacle to the new government approach to addressing the impacts of the disaster, particularly in supporting the livelihoods of the affected communities. Livelihoods are inseparable from property rights. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, livelihoods are sustainable if they can withstand shocks and difficulties and maintain capabilities and assets without depleting natural resources. Property rights, alongside work, are among the most commonly used assets to produce food for family consumption and to generate cash revenues that allow the family or individuals to meet other needs such as health and education.

Therefore, it seems that moving to the stage of supporting livelihood projects and seeking international financiers for them before completing the documentation of affected property ownership and before securing housing for the victims may be a misstep.

According to the definition of sustainable livelihoods, property rights are one of the most substantial resources available to people to increase and expand their assets beyond the available land and labour until they reach the full portfolio of assets necessary for sustainable livelihoods, including natural resources, social, human and financial capital, in addition to natural assets.

The workshops

While the governors shared figures on various accomplishments made on the ground, some local officials discussed the challenges facing the implementation of the National Action Plan. The State Minister for Southern Region Development, Diala Barakat, repeated the same speech in all workshops, describing the current situation, executive programs, and work mechanisms to implement the items of the National Action Plan, and talked about the minor and significant needs to determine the implementation mechanisms according to specified timelines.

The Minister allocated a significant portion of her speech in all the workshops to what she described as expanding the base of livelihood projects, targeting families that have lost their source of income to help gradually restore everyday life to the earthquake-affected areas.

The first workshop was held in the Aleppo governorate on October 23, attended by Minister Barakat and Aleppo Governor Hussein Diab. The Governor stated that 115 engineering committees conducted engineering surveys on more than 126,000 buildings in the governorate, and 453 damaged buildings were demolished. He pointed out that the implementation rate of the project to build 120 residential units in Al-Masraneya suburb and 320 residential units in Al-Haidariya suburb had reached 55 percent.

A similar workshop was held in the Lattakia governorate on October 24, attended by Lattakia Governor Amer Hilal. The Minister explained that the governorate had closed its shelters, and the current phase is related to recovery, activating economic activities, returning life to normal, and providing safe housing solutions for earthquake victims. The Head of Lattakia Governorate Council also mentioned problems concerning determining the ownership of demolished and cracked buildings. Meanwhile, the Head of the Operations Room in the Lattakia governorate confirmed that 60 percent of the buildings had been inspected, with 12,700 out of 20,000 buildings inspected. According to the decisions of the structural safety committees, 6,399 buildings need reinforcement, and 4,991 buildings need restoration.

The Head of Lattakia City Council emphasized that the Decision 555 Committee is responsible for proving real estate ownership. The committee is responsible for issuing lists of earthquake victims, including representatives from relevant public authorities such as real estate, finance, communications, civil registries, water and electricity institutions, and appropriate administrative units, as well as several civil entities.

Meanwhile, the head of the Governorate Council pointed out that many properties in the governorate are commonly owned, with informal housing areas that are unlicensed and unzoned. The head of Jableh City Council emphasized the need to secure state-owned lands to build alternative housing for earthquake victims, noting that 120 such apartments are being built, while the number of damaged apartments stands at 241.

The last workshop was held on October 25 in Hama, attended by Minister Barakat, Hama Governor Mahmoud Zanboua, and Idlib Governor Thaer Salhab. Mr Zanboua stated that 640 houses were restored, and 397 livelihood projects targeting earthquake victims were launched. Meanwhile, Mr Salhab said that the earthquake damaged 66 houses, including 55 partially cracked houses, and the rest were on the verge of collapse, with their residents evacuated.

Participants in the workshop discussed providing support to the victims to restore their livelihoods, creating material income sources for them, rebuilding service centres, rehabilitating damaged infrastructure, focusing on the most affected and vulnerable groups, and finding solutions to some problems related to real estate ownership data in rural and informal areas. Such issues often hinder the completion of transactions associated with providing facilities to the victims and granting them loans to repair their homes and other facilities.

SSG Restructures the Engineers’ Syndicate in Idlib

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The Syrian Salvation Government’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services issued Decision No. 506 on September 15, which ordered the merger of the Aleppo Engineers’ Syndicate branch with its counterpart in Idlib. This unified entity will be named the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate, headquartered in the Engineers’ Syndicate building on Al-Qusour Street in Idlib city. The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) is affiliated with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group, formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front, which controls vast areas in Idlib and some parts of Aleppo’s countryside.

The Free Engineers’ Syndicate was established in 2014 in opposition-controlled areas, with branches in both Idlib and Aleppo. In 2020, the SSG mandated the restructuring of the Idlib branch, renaming it the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate in Idlib. The Aleppo branch of the Free Engineers’ Syndicate continues to operate in areas controlled by the opposition-run Syrian Interim Government (SIG) in northern Aleppo without any change. Notably, theAleppo Engineers’ Syndicate branch in Aleppo is an assembly of engineers from areas controlled by the SSG in Aleppo’s countryside, who had separated from their original branch about a year ago to form their own grouping, colloquially referred to as “Al-Dana branch” due to its location in Al-Dana city north of Idlib. This branch is unrelated to the Free Engineers’ Syndicate branch in Aleppo.

Following the earthquake on February 6, 2023, the SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services began downsizing the role of the Engineers’ Syndicate. They blamed the syndicate for the catastrophic results of the earthquake in areas under their control. This accusation seems unfounded since it is not within the syndicate’s jurisdiction, as a professional body, to prevent unlicensed construction or the emergence of informal settlements, which were most affected by the quake.

The ministry had earlier issued Decision No. 307 on May 22, establishing the Directorate of Engineering Affairs and assigning it multiple tasks previously undertaken by the syndicate. These include auditing engineering plans related to administrative transactions, overseeing engineering projects and studies, licensing engineers, classifying engineering offices and companies, and endorsing the engineering teams overseeing all engineering studies in Idlib.

The ministry formed a joint committee with the Engineers’ Syndicate to draft the body’s new bylaws, clarifying its responsibilities, structure, and relationship with the Directorate of Engineering Affairs. These bylaws have not been finalised yet. Despite the absence of these bylaws, the newly restructured syndicate’s roles seem limited to registering engineers and overseeing the operations of engineering firms, according to Said Al-Ashqar, advisor to the Minister of Local Administration and Services.

According to the ministry’s recent Decision No. 506, Engineer Malik Haj Ali was appointed as the head of the syndicate, and six engineers were assigned as members of the new syndicate council. Engineer Hassan Othman was charged to chair the syndicate’s internal audit committee, consisting of three members.

Multiple sources from the Idlib branch of the Engineers’ Syndicate told The Syria Report that the branch effectively ceased being an independent professional entity after Decision No. 307. Its remaining capabilities are now limited, with some sources indicating that the SSG has relegated the syndicate’s engineers to mere processors of engineering transactions at the Directorate of Engineering Affairs in the ministry.

The head of the Free Engineers’ Syndicate branch in Aleppo, Engineer Khaled Al-Othman, told The Syria Report that syndicates are civil entities and should remain outside the formal governmental sphere. He said he was surprised by the dissolution of an elected and legitimate professional body and its replacement by an official governmental entity. Rather, syndicates serve as protective umbrellas for professionals and are supposed to be independent technical and supervisory bodies.

SSG Modifies Building Code in Idlib, Raising Permit Fees

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The Ministry of Local Administration and Services in the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in Idlib is attempting to regulate the construction sector after the widespread destruction caused by the earthquake on February 6, 2023. The Ministry is working to subject new construction operations to the Syrian building code and its annex related to earthquakes, imposing strict administrative and technical oversight mechanisms and increasing fees and taxes on construction work.

The Ministry has transferred the powers of the Engineers Syndicate to the Directorate of Engineering Affairs in the Ministry, which has become responsible for reviewing the engineering studies for any new construction, as part of the permit process. The Directorate is responsible for rejecting engineering studies that do not comply with construction conditions, Ministry advisor and engineer Said Al-Ashqar told The Syria Report’s correspondent.

The Ministry has set five different criteria determining the final building permit fees, including location, surrounding streets, regulatory nature, type of establishment and general description of the building. However, the Ministry has not yet officially published the fee values. Meanwhile, a correspondent for The Syria Report quoted local sources as saying that the new fees for residential building permits reach up to $3 per square metre of construction. 

The Ministry has prohibited permits for common-ownership lands and required land partitioning before permitting construction on such properties.

According to Ashqar, the technical phases of building homes and public facilities begin with an architectural and structural engineering study, submitted by a supervising engineer to the competent municipality to obtain a permit. The Directorate of Engineering Affairs then audits and certifies the study, returning it to the municipality, which in turn grants the building permit. Afterward, the municipality and the supervising engineer oversee all stages of implementation.

Throughout all these stages, adherence to this building code system is necessary. This system consists of administrative decisions issued by administrative units that determine the necessary conditions for building, repairing and demolishing structures within the limits of the administrative unit. Each administrative unit issues its own specific regulation, in line with the zoning plan and the nature of the area.

The Ministry has divided the building code system into two parts: regulation within the zoning plan and regulation outside it. In both cases, certain conditions must be observed, the most important of which are adherence to the minimum land area to be built on, the number of storeys, the area of the facades and compliance with the minimum storey height.

Building regulations outside the zoning plans are classified into three sections: first, a protection area for the detailed zoning plan from any informal urban expansion, where building is prohibited. 

Second are agricultural areas outside the zoning plan, where building is allowed on land smaller than 200 square metres. If the land area is less than 4,000 square metres, construction is allowed with a two-storey system, with the maximum area for one storey at 100 square metres. If the land area exceeds 4,000 square metres, the area of one floor should be 160 square metres. In all cases, a facade for the building must be left at a distance of 10 metres at the front, and five metres for the other sides.

The third type of area outside of zoning plans are the rocky mountainous areas. Ministry of Local Administration Decision No. 370, issued on August 21, 2023, stipulates that the minimum area of the partition to be built upon in such zones is 200 square metres, and the width of the front of one partition is 12 square metres, with facades of three metres on all sides. The regulation added details about the building conditions in this case, such as the number of allowable storeys if the property overlooks a street according to its width, the total height of the storeys, and the facades. Commercial and industrial construction, various investment projects, and residential suburbs in rocky mountainous regions are exempted from this building regulation system to be considered separately.

The Ministry also issued Circular No. 14 on June 1, treating all properties under construction as existing buildings, meaning their owners must obtain a new construction permit. 

Authorities allowed legal settlement for law-violating buildings inside or outside of zoning plans, as well as the obtainment of official construction permits. The main settlement condition is that a committee consisting of three engineers must submit a structural safety report about the building to the Directorate of Technical Services in the Ministry.

Even earlier than that, on May 17, 2023, the Ministry issued Circular No. 8, specifying the required documents to complete the administrative transactions related to permits and settlements as follows: a real estate registration statement proving ownership, along with a copy of the identity of the land or building owner, a survey plan with a statement of neighbouring properties, a topographical statement, and a general site drawing. 

Circular No. 9, also issued on May 17, outlined the administrative procedures for permits and settlement, whereby the reception office in the municipality receives the request, ensures the accuracy and completeness of the documents, and forwards the request to the technical department in the central municipality for verification. This department also conducts a preliminary technical inspection and transfers it to the Directorate of Technical Services in the Ministry of Local Administration and Services.

What Has the National Fund for Earthquake Victim Support Achieved So Far?

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Seven months after the devastating February 2023 earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, the response of Syria’s National Fund to support those affected by the earthquake, remains modest at best within Lattakia governorate, and is hardly noticeable in Aleppo.

The fund was established by Legislative Decree No. 7 of 2023 to provide financial support to people affected by the quake. On August 22, the state-run Al-Baath newspaper reported on a panel discussion by the fund’s director, Fares Kallas, in which he stated that the fund is part of the “National Action Plan for Dealing with Earthquake Aftermath – People First,” to respond to the quake aftermath.

The fund’s operational duration is three years, during which time management must distribute incoming revenues to eligible quake victims. Mr Kallas confirmed that the fund possesses complete data on those affected by the disaster. He added that the fund has faced challenges with private property laws and called for greater flexibility in these laws, as well as amendments when public interest demands it in exceptional circumstances such as earthquakes. The Al-Baath article did not clarify what Mr Kallas meant by “challenges with private property laws”. 

Hussein Makhlouf, Syria’s Minister of Local Administration and Environment, confirmed at an August 15 press conference that the earthquake victims fund would also provide support to the tune of SYP 156.5 billion to help repair damaged homes. However, it was unclear whether this is the total amount available in the fund or if it is the estimated total cost required by the fund for the repairs. Mr Kallas confirmed during the same conference that the fund had not yet received any money from other Arab countries or from international organisations. 

People impacted by the earthquake should register at citizen service centres before the end of 2023, the deadline set by the fund, Lattakia governor Amer Hilal told the semi-state-run daily Al-Watan on August 30. Three centres have been set up to serve citizens in the governorates of Aleppo, Lattakia and Hama, each of which includes an employee from the General Housing Establishment and from the Real Estate Bank. 

The first phase of the support programme provided by the fund includes compensation for owners of buildings that were destroyed during the February 6 earthquake or the February 20 aftershock. Those buildings fall into two categories:

First: Demolished properties located within licensed buildings in a zoned area. The earthquake response fund is to compensate owners with SYP 160 million for reconstruction. Mr Makhlouf stated that the licensed homes in this category include “Arab houses” (traditional one-storey homes), apartments in two-storey residential buildings, and licensed commercial premises. These constitute 61 percent of the earthquake-affected properties. Mr Makhlouf added that the fund aims to support owners in this category with more than SYP 134.5 billion in total funds.

Owners of the demolished homes from this category (or any person authorised to act on behalf of a group of owners of a single ruined building) must submit a registration request at their citizen service centre in order to get support from the fund. As of August 28, only 55 people submitted such requests to the citizen service centre in Lattakia, that centre’s director, Ali Hassan, told Al-Watan. Mr Hassan added that no documents, other than a personal ID, are required from people in this category, provided their name appears on the lists of drawn by the committee set up under Decision No. 555, which is the body responsible for determining which victims are covered in the first phase of the fund’s programme. These lists are signed off by the governors of the relevant governorates.

After that, the citizen service centre is responsible for obtaining the remaining documents. According to Mr Makhlouf, the relevant governorate’s operations room extracts the papers needed for the earthquake-damaged licensed properties within 48 hours. The request is then referred to the city council and the Engineers’ Syndicate, which gives its initial approval for the reconstruction permit and authenticates the engineering plans and final reconstruction permit. The syndicate then submits the permit electronically to the earthquake response fund’s board, after which the fund provides its first SYP 80 million instalment of support money. The applicant then enters into a certified contracting agreement with the Contractors’ Syndicate. This contract is electronically referred to the fund’s board, after which the second SYP 80 million instalment is transferred. 

Second: Unlicensed properties located in zoned and unzoned areas. Owners may apply for housing within the government housing programmes for earthquake victims built by the General Housing Establishment. They may also benefit from SYP 40 million in financial support paid by the fund directly to the GHE, and also have the option to obtain a loan from the Real Estate Bank under Decree No. 3 of 2023, equivalent to the remaining amount of the housing unit’s value. Decree No. 3 grants earthquake victims certain tax exemptions, some of which are related to their fully or partially demolished properties.

People in this second category should submit a letter to their citizen service centre saying they wish to obtain a residential unit from the GHE, Minister of Public Works and Housing, Suhail AbdulLatif explained at an August 15 press conference. Templates for these letters are available. The centre then arranges all the necessary documents through various automated states, AbdulLatif added. 

The minister’s statements, notably, contradict an Al-Watan article from August 30 stating that people in the second category must obtain an “Administrative Unit Form” approved in their governorate in order to prove their property ownership. They must submit this form to their citizen services centre accompanied by a “barani” (informal) sales contract, a property sheet reference, a court ruling or a deed transfer from the original landowner to the unlicensed property owner certified by a notary. Also, utility bills for electricity, telephone, or water for the demolished property should be attached.

In any case, once the file is ready, it is automatically sent to the fund’s management, which reviews the applicant’s data. Within three days, they transfer the SYP 40 million to the GHE on behalf of the applicant, who is then notified of the transfer and receives a subscription document. They may then choose their desired apartment by reviewing all the details on the GHE’s website. Subsequently, the victim has the right to apply at their citizen services centre for a loan under Decree No. 3. The loan amount is also transferred to the GHE’s account.

AbdulLatif pointed out that the cost of each apartment can be as much as SYP 200 million, meaning the applicant benefits only from the SYP 40 million provided by the fund, with the remaining SYP 160 million as a loan to be paid in instalments over five years to the GHE.

SSG Transfers Civil Administration Powers from Local Councils to New Centralised Municipalities

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The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) affiliated with the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is working to sideline local councils in the area under its control and implement a new administrative system based on so-called centralised municipalities – a move that comes after it also sidelined the Free Engineers’ Syndicate in Idlib in May. 

The SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services is the entity in charge of this measure, justifying it as part of the aftermath of the devastating February 6 earthquake that struck northwestern Syria.

The ministry has held local councils and the Free Engineers’ Syndicate responsible for the spread of dangerous unlicensed construction prior to the quake. Despite opposition from the local councils and the syndicate, the ministry appears determined to fast-track implementation of the new Central Municipalities law, even though the law has yet to be officially issued. Notably, the draft law strips most technical and administrative duties away from the local councils and gives them to the newly formed centralised municipalities.

If passed, the law would see the Idlib governorate divided into eight municipalities, according to Mohammad Saeed Al-Ashqar, an advisor to the SSG’s Minister of Local Administration. These eight municipalities will be specialised technical bodies with a unified regulatory framework. They will issue all types of permits and carry out technical inspections on buildings during their construction, in addition to overseeing licensed facilities. Each municipality will have reception centres spread across its geographical jurisdiction, with a potential total of up to 30 centres. These reception centres will handle various complaints and licensing requests, settle issues with non-compliant properties, and then forward them to their relevant central municipality.

There is also likely to be a new electoral process for the local councils in all administrative units, after which all elected members within each of the eight central municipalities will form an electoral body to appoint the municipal council. Meanwhile, the role of local councils will be limited to social representation, namely, conveying the concerns of the people to the regional administration. This means the local councils will no longer provide technical and administrative services within their jurisdictions.

The law is likely to be issued in early 2024, yet the Ministry of Local Administration appears to be behaving as if it is already in effect. For example, the ministry has already gone ahead with dividing Idlib into the eight planned administrative regions and establishing a centralised municipality in each, directly appointing its members without any electoral process. The municipalities are: Idlib District Municipality, Central District Municipality, Northern District Municipality, Ariha Municipality, Sarmada Municipality, Atma Municipality, Harem Municipality, and Jisr al-Shughour Municipality.

The ministry has also begun issuing directives to these new municipalities, such as Directive No. 14 on June 1, which addresses buildings owned collectively and how they should be treated in their current state, as well as granting licences after preparing a technical subdivision plan that complies with the building code.

According to the ministry, the new centralised municipalities law is necessary due to the lack of technical expertise from local councils, especially during the period before the devastating earthquake. By “technical expertise,” they mean the scientific and engineering experience suitable for Idlib.

The ministry refuses to simply rely on the Damascus government’s pre-existing Local Administration Law No. 107 of 2011, which today is still applied in regime-controlled areas. They also reject circulars and decisions related to municipalities issued by Damascus’ Ministry of Local Administration and Environment.

Prior to the SSG’s new draft law, the lack of a unified engineering and legal reference in Idlib meant technical engineering matters were subject to tensions within the local councils’ technical offices, according to Ashqar. With the new centralised municipalities law, he added, the technical and engineering role will be assumed solely by the centralised municipalities and the Ministry of Local Administration.

With this role, centralised municipalities will deal with all the previous issues that were of concern to local councils: encroachments on public facilities and roads, forging of administrative transaction documents, building without a permit, pouring concrete ceilings without municipal engineering supervision, blocking roads with building materials or debris, supplying construction materials to an unlicensed site, and determining locations for commercial stalls and kiosks on roads and sidewalks.

However, one source from the local councils said they view the ministry’s new measures as monopolising public engineering and technical work, making such matters exclusively the purview of the SSG. The source added that this approach would increase centralisation and reduce flexibility in dealing with people’s day-to-day administrative issues. 

While the source highlighted the importance of having a unified reference for municipal policies for engineering and zoning, they stated that the solution should not be to strip local councils, and by extension the Free Engineers’ Syndicate, of their powers. Instead, it would be more appropriate to enhance the authority of these bodies rather than concentrating power within the hands of the SSG alone.

Since the opposition took control of Idlib in 2012, followed by HTS several years later, no municipal elections have been held. The current local councils in Idlib are mostly appointed, with only a small portion selected through local consensus. They do not operate based on the Damascus government’s existing Local Administration Law No. 107 of 2011. Rather, in 2019, the SSG restructured local councils in its territory by establishing a Shura Council in each administrative unit to select local council members.

Previously, the SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Service issued Decision No. 307 on May 22, 2023, establishing the Directorate of Engineering Affairs, which is meant to take over most of the Free Engineers’ Syndicate’s former duties. This decision sparked many objections within the syndicate.

Some ministry sources said Decision No. 307 came in response to the catastrophic damage wrought by the February 6 quake, as well as the weak role by the syndicate in building and developing infrastructure and the lack of recent engineering studies to avoid such damage. However, the syndicate has denied responsibility for shoddy construction work before the earthquake and stressed that it does not have the executive authority to enforce building regulations.

Pre-Fab Homes in Jabrin: For Earthquake Victims, or Militias Members?

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Local militias in Aleppo, loyal to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, have reportedly seized 150 out of 450 pre-fab homes meant to benefit civilians impacted by the February 6 earthquake, according to a local source. 

Only 300 of these pre-fab homes would have reached its destination in the Jabrin area, which had been designated for the temporary housing, according to the source. Out of the 150 pre-fab homes seized, the Baqir Brigade militia, loyal to the Revolutionary Guard, has seized 30 dwellings, setting them up near their stronghold in the Belloreh neighbourhood in eastern Aleppo. And local militias in Aleppo loyal to the Revolutionary Guard, have seized 120 of the dwellings and moved them to military bases and locations they control in Azzan, Assan and Al-Hader in southern Aleppo governorate, as well as Nubl and Zahraa in northern Aleppo. 

On April 15, the state-run SANA agency quoted a member of the Aleppo governorate’s Executive Office, saying that the body has allocated 13 hectares in Jabrin for a Popular Mobilisation Forces relief initiative. The Iraqi Popular Relief Force is the civilian arm of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, comprised of armed, majority Shiite Iraqi factions. 

The relief initiative coordinator previously told SANA that the project aims to set up 500 housing units. Each dwelling is 36 square metres and consists of two bedrooms, a salon and its annexes, and is equipped with a solar panel. Iron is the primary material used in manufacturing these units, along with sound and thermal insulation materials. They are to be furnished and can accommodate six to eight people. These dwellings, constructed by the Popular Relief Forces, appear to be little more than tin sheds, according to published photos.

The Syria Report’s local correspondent noted that there is confusion surrounding the distribution process of these pre-fabricated homes in Jabrin to the earthquake victims in Aleppo. To date, the Aleppo City Council has not issued any lists of eligible recipients for these homes, nor any clarification on how to apply for them or what criteria applicants must meet. Meanwhile, residents in Aleppo say there are rumours that these homes will be distributed to members of local militias loyal to the Revolutionary Guard. 

In March, the Aleppo governorate operations room adopted a plan to construct pre-fabricated temporary housing units to shelter those affected by the earthquake. The units were planned to be set up over 50 hectares in Jabrin, an area near Aleppo International Airport, surrounded by an industrial zone and the Aleppo train station. The area was incorporated into the administrative borders of Aleppo city in 1996 and had been the site of a refugee shelter and camps established in 2017.

Most of the land in the town of Jabrin is publicly owned, and was acquired by the state in various stages since the 1980s. Originally, Jabrin’s lands were private agricultural properties owned by local villagers. 

In 1981, however, the Aleppo City Council acquired 323 hectares of this land to establish an industrial zone. The council also planned to set up a vocational zone in Jabrin specifically for car maintenance workshops. Many industrial and vocational plots have been developed over the past decades through collaboration between the Aleppo governorate and Aleppo City Council, along with the General Federation of Artisans Associations (GFAA), although a formal industrial zone and vocational area have not fully materialised.

Despite these extensive land expropriations in Jabrin, the area has not seen any significant benefits. The town still lacks basic services like electricity, water and sewage facilities, and most of its construction is unlicensed. However, the acquisitions have not stopped. 

In 2004, the Minister of Irrigation issued Decision No. 1739 to implement a water canal from the main channel in Maskana to the Queiq River, and Decision No. 840 in 2005 to build feeder channels to the plains of southern Aleppo. These decisions led to the expropriation of many properties and parts of properties in the town and its remaining lands.

Decree No. 840 was issued to acquire most of Property No. 466 in Jabrin for the irrigation project in the southeastern plains of Aleppo. The project uprooted 15,000 olive and pistachio and grape vines, in addition to arable grain-cultivated lands.

 In 2006, Decree No. 460 was issued, stipulating cash payments as compensation for the properties and parts of properties that were expropriated for the project. However, according to The Syria Report’s local correspondent, the majority of those affected in the Jabrin area have not received any compensation for their expropriated lands.

During the conflict, the site of the Jabrin Industrial Zone remained under the control of regime forces as it was close to Aleppo’s civilian and military airports. The industrial area has become a hub for local militias loyal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including the Al-Quds Brigade, which has its main base in the nearby Al-Nayrab camp. A local source in the Jabrin area told The Syria Report that between 2012-2016, displaced people from eastern Aleppo neighbourhoods lived in designated areas of the industrial zone in Jabrin. Meanwhile, pro-regime militias allocated some of these areas as depots for their vehicles, weapons and ammunition.

After regime forces regained control of east Aleppo in late 2016, the City Council promised to rehabilitate the Jabrin Industrial Zone, and complete and hand over the real estate plots within the zone. It also aimed to encourage the relocation of trades and crafts from inside Aleppo city to Jabrin. However, the council’s promises remained unfulfilled, and the Jabrin Industrial Zone remained as it had been previously.

In 2017, a shelter centre for displaced people was opened in the Jabrin Industrial Zone. That same year, the Aleppo City Council stated that work had begun on completing the first phase of the vocational area for car maintenance in Jabrin, after the site had been divided into multiple project phases. However, no actual progress has been made on the project.

A year later, in 2018, the Aleppo City Council allocated the centre to receive displaced residents from the Shiite villages of Kafraya and Al-Foua in the Idlib countryside. In recent months, the Aleppo Defenders’ Brigade militia, affiliated with the Syrian branch of Hezbollah, relocated more than 400 families from Kafraya and Al-Foua from the Jabrin shelter to apartments in areas under their control in the neighbourhoods of Bab Al-Nayrab, Al-Marjeh, Al-Firdous, Al-Balloura, Karm Homad and Al-Maadi. These apartments were originally owned by people who had been forcibly displaced to opposition-controlled areas in northwestern Syria.

In 2019, Aleppo City Council formed a follow-up committee to rehabilitate the Jabrin Industrial Zone in preparation for transferring the craftspeople. Many of the applicants and allottees on plots in the Jabrin Industrial Zone, whether built or still in the planning stage, were internally displaced by the war. According to the GFAA, those people’s subscriptions will be cancelled on the grounds of defaulting on their instalment payments.

Idlib Engineers Protest SSG Decision to Sideline Them

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The Free Engineers’ Syndicate in Idlib is negogiating with the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), the political arm of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, to amend parts of Decree No. 307, which the SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services issued on May 22, 2023. The decree established a Directorate of Engineering Affairs within the ministry and assigned various tasks previously under the auspices of the Engineers’ Syndicate. 

Sources from the ministry claimed that the decree stemmed from the devastating impacts of the February 6 earthquake and the lack of any role for the Syndicate in reconstruction or infrastructure development work. The source said there has also been a need for more recent engineering studies to keep up with the pace of construction and address resulting issues.

The earthquake caused the partial and complete collapse of hundreds of buildings in areas under SSG control in Idlib and Aleppo governorates. The scale of destruction was due, notably, to existing damage from previous bombings of the regime forces in the area, a lack of engineering supervision in zoning and implementation, and rapid urban expansion via unlicensed construction.

The SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services issued Decree No. 307 based on a decision from the Presidency of the Shura Council, a quasi-legislative authority, and with the approval of the SSG’s prime minister.

The decree outlined the duties of the Directorate of Engineering Affairs, which include: examining all engineering plans related to administrative transactions within the Ministry of Local Administration and Services; examining engineering projects and studies in all work sectors; granting professional licenses to engineers; classifying engineering offices and companies; classifying and granting engineers’ rankings; and approving the engineering staff for studying and supervising all engineering studies in Idlib. 

Decree No. 307 also cancelled the powers previously granted to entities carrying out the tasks mentioned above, making the newly established engineering directorate the sole entity empowered to do those duties. Those older entities include the Idlib Branch of the Free Engineers’ Syndicate, founded in 2014 in opposition-controlled areas. It has two branches: one in Idlib and another in Aleppo. In 2020, the Idlib branch was restructured and named the Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate-Idlib Branch, with 850 members. Decree No. 307 barred them from the revenue they previously received from engineering studies and supervision work, which had constituted the primary source of the Syndicate funding and served as the “Mutual Takaful Fund” for members. The Syndicate used to distribute the engineering work among its members, and those members received wages through that fund.

The Syria Report also understands that the Ministry of Local Administration and Services will now require contracting companies operating in Idlib to employ an engineer from its directorate, whose task will be supervising and monitoring the project implementation. Contractors must pay a salary to the delegated engineer of about USD 600 per month (in USD). This requirement was made without a formal written decision but communicated verbally to contractors and contracting companies hoping to continue working in SSG-controlled areas. The ministry also now requires its contractors to use concrete produced by the Ishebilia Stone Works Company (Ishbilia stands for Sevilla in Arabic). It is unclear who owns the company, located near the Bab Al-Hawa crossing north of Idlib. However, it produces gravel, sand, and concrete necessary for construction. Engineers from the ministry oversee the production of construction materials in the quarry and test them for their engineering properties.

The construction sector in Idlib has faced numerous crises in recent years, including the spread of unlicensed construction and the inability of municipal authorities and the Engineers’ Syndicate to enforce building codes. These problems were made more evident by the widespread destruction of the February 6 earthquake.

Saeed Al-Ashqar, an advisor to the SSG’s Minsitry of Local Administration and Services, told The Syria Report that it was necessary to impose stricter monitoring of all engineering studies provided by local engineering offices and companies to ensure adherence to the Syrian Arab Code and its appendix on the basic principles for earthquake-resistant building design, and to verify architectural plans and implementation of proper construction.

Meanwhile, the Syndicate has denied responsibility for the poor execution of construction works before the earthquake. One syndicate member told The Syria Report that most buildings damaged by the earthquake were built during a period of unlicensed construction and lack of permits, and the Syndicate does not have executive authority to enforce building regulations. The engineer added that the government and municipalities are the ones who enforce the law, grant building permits and follow up on their implementation. They are responsible for the chaos and informal construction, he added.

He also urged integration between the ministry and the Engineers’ Syndicate rather than removing certain powers from the latter. He added that the ministry has monopolised the engineering work, handpicking a few affiliated engineers, some of whom have less than one year of experience, and tasking them with monitoring the works of contracting companies. He added that Decree No. 307 favours the ministry at the expense of the Free Engineers’ Syndicate. This is in addition to the potential harm that could occur in the future to the proper functioning of construction as the Syndicate’s expertise is sidelined.

The Engineers’ Syndicate put forth great efforts after the earthquake, collaborating with the Ministry of Local Administration and its Technical Services Department to form committees of volunteer engineers and assess the damage, he said. These committees surveyed cracked buildings and evaluated their structural integrity, determining if they were fit for habitation or needed to be evacuated or repaired.

Amid the exchange of accusations between the two sides, a joint committee consisting of seven engineers from the Syndicate and the ministry was formed to study the rules of procedure governing the Syndicate’s work. The committee will determine the tasks of the Syndicate by preparing new rules of procedure and regulating the work of engineering offices and companies in Idlib. The committee is also working on establishing a financial system that will provide regular income for engineers and implement the decisions issued by the Syndicate’s elected general committee, the highest authority in the Syndicate.

Housing for Earthquake Survivors in Aleppo to be Built on Land Formerly Inhabited by IDPs

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Recent weeks have seen government housing projects announced as part of the long-term third phase of the National Action Plan to address the earthquake aftermath (dubbed “People First”), which the Council of Ministers declared on February 15 and approved a month later. 

In addition to providing accommodation for earthquake survivors, these projects aim to rezone and rebuild some informal settlements in east Aleppo, including Al-Maasrania suburb.  

Suhail Abdul Latif, the Minister of Public Works and Housing, inspected progress on government housing for eligible earthquake victims on June 3. A week later, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous was briefed on the project, which consists of four buildings comprising 120 flats, each ranging in size from 65 to 90 square metres, with a total floor area of 10,000 square metres, at a total estimated cost of SYP 18.6 billion. According to official announcements last June, the project is about 28 percent completed. The Military Construction Implementation Establishment, a part of the Ministry of Defence, is carrying it out.

A source in the Aleppo City Council told The Syria Report that the government would build the housing project for the earthquake victims on the ruins of unlicensed buildings partially or entirely damaged in combat. The buildings, located near Sayyida Zeinab Street and the Paint Factory in Al-Maasrania, had been previously demolished by the City Council in March and April 2021. At the time, the City Council carried out a demolition campaign targeting 50 buildings, most of whose owners had been forcibly displaced to opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria.

However, the City council did not announce at the time about these demolitions, which were part of a beautification plan to upgrade roads, sanitation and water networks in the suburb. The project involved demolishing unlicensed buildings partially or entirely damaged in combat when the opposition-controlled east Aleppo between 2012 and 2016. The City Council refused to grant renovation permits for the partially damaged buildings because they were in areas of mass unlicensed construction.

It remains unclear whether the earthquake victims’ housing project will be built on the same parcel of the land previously seized in Al-Maasrania for the benefit of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, where a youth housing project has been ongoing since 2002.

Al-Maasrania is located on the Aleppo-Raqqa highway near Aleppo International Airport. Initially, the suburb consisted of agricultural lands where construction was prohibited, and which were owned by the Sabouni, Benqisli, and Jabli families from Aleppo. However, informal settlements began to appear in the area in 1971, inhabited mainly by people who migrated to Aleppo city from rural areas. Many were employees in government institutions, ministries, police departments and the military. Since the 1970s, these newcomers would buy small plots of land and build unlicensed homes. It became customary for buyers to file lawsuits against the sellers to verify the sales, through which they obtain a court ruling confirming the transaction – the only document proving their ownership of the land. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs refused to document such sales, rejecting the recognition of its de facto subdivision and the existence of construction on it.

In 1982, the state confiscated agricultural lands in Al-Maasrania close to Aleppo International Airport, including 36 properties that it seized only partially. Nevertheless, the process of unlicensed construction on the partially seized plots continued. These properties extended from the Scientific Research facility to the east, formerly known as the Paint Factory neighbourhood, to the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque neighbourhood to the south and to the west in the Shulba neighbourhood. The City Council considered the entire Al-Maasrania neighbourhood an area of collective unlicensed construction. In 2002, ownership of the 36 partially seized plots was transferred to the General Housing Establishment, which launched a youth housing project to build 4,000 residential flats on a 68-hectare area. Of these flats, 215 were allocated as paid alternative housing for those who had been notified that their homes would be demolished in the project zone.

Then in 2007, the Aleppo City Council demolished 50 unlicensed houses in the youth housing project area. Law enforcement surrounded the area, assaulting those who tried to halt the demolition of their homes. The City Council promised that evicted residents would be given priority in subscribing to the paid alternative housing in the project area. However, by 2010, only a small portion of the entire project had been completed, much like all social housing projects in Syria.

Al-Maasrania became a dangerous area after 2012 due to its proximity to the airport. It was subject to air strikes by the regime until 2016, resulting in widespread devastation. In December 2016, all residents were displaced outside of Aleppo city. Then, on December 20, 2020, the General Housing Establishment cancelled the subscriptions of those who had not paid their required instalments in more than a year, essentially removing forcibly displaced people.

The Rubble After the Earthquake in Lattakia

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Since the February 6 earthquake, the rubble in Lattakia has been treated as a sensitive security issue and a taboo topic. The issue is a “red line” for some people. Everything mentioned on the topic relates to the contents of the collapsed homes, such as furnishings and other valuables that remained intact, rather than the rubble itself. 

Legally, the rubble belongs to the homeowners. However, owners who spoke with The Syria Report said they had yet to receive compensation for the debris of their homes and properties. They also said they did not have the opportunity to gather their valuables from beneath the rubble before it was removed. Most owners said they don’t know if they can still collect the rubble of their collapsed homes and are too afraid to inquire about the topic.

A source from Lattakia Governorate told The Syria Report that the government transported the earthquake rubble to a dump on the new Aleppo highway. He added that the rubble would be recycled and some of it used as gravel in public road paving projects. However, much of the rubble contains metals such as iron, copper, and aluminium, which “influential merchants” ‘will likely use unofficially, according to the source. He said that this aspect of the rubble is well-known, though the source refused to elaborate further. 

Law No. 3 of 2018, which addresses the removal of rubble from buildings after natural or unnatural disasters (or those subject to laws requiring their demolition), gave the owners of demolished real estate the right to the value of their rubble. However, the law left local administrative units responsible for deciding the value of such rubble after selling it in public auctions or recycling it and deducting the demolition and removal costs. Law No. 3 was not mentioned at any stage of the building damage and rubble removal underway in Lattakia post-earthquake. 

A source from the Lattakia City Council told The Syria Report that widespread fears around discussing the rubble are unrealistic. Instead, the source said, the problem lies with certain parties in local municipalities trying to cover up corruption and theft during rubble removal by spreading rumours that the topic was a sensitive security issue or a red line. According to this source, the municipal work crews removing the rubble committed major violations against private property. 

According to the source, the matter is not merely about “low-income workers having a right to benefit [from the rubble].” Still, it is more systematic and overseen by officials in the municipal councils. Often, the crews responsible for debris removal prevent locals from accompanying them during their work under the pretence of protecting them, while in reality, they are monopolising the debris sites, digging them for valuable items, and stealing them. What remains of the furniture is often unfit for use or recycling. Interestingly, according to the source, the residents have registered no official complaints against the municipal authorities for theft.

In contrast, an informed source from the Lattakia governorate council told The Syria Report that the executive office has been holding regular meetings to follow up on demolishing buildings at risk of collapse and removing their debris. The council has followed the necessary legal procedures during the demolition and deportation operations, including the need for the following documents:

  • Police unit control document;
  • Property owner’s consent to the demolition and removal; authenticated by the notary;
  • Decisions issued by the councils of administrative units to demolish the property based on reports from structural safety committees.

According to the source, each meeting reaffirmed the right of building owners to access the rubble of their homes and to be informed about the details of the demolition and deportation process all the way to the final dump site.

However, the debris removal process did not start until a month after the earthquake. This process included debris from completely collapsed buildings, as well as from severely damaged buildings at risk of collapse due to the quake, which was demolished by crews belonging to the Lattakia City Council and Lattakia governorate, with the help of crews from the Military Construction Establishment (MCE) branch in Lattakia governorate. The MCE is a contractor affiliated with the Ministry of Defence.

The process began with the collapsed building in Lattakia city’s Al-Sijn “prison” neighbourhood. One of the building’s residents said on Facebook that the municipality asked for SYP 70 million to remove the debris. One worker claimed that this payment was to cover the debris removal and sorting costs and allow the residents to take whatever they wanted from their properties. This caused widespread confusion about the responsibilities of the municipalities and the governorate in removing debris and maintaining private property. After that, the municipality suddenly removed the debris from the site without collecting any payment from the former residents or informing them of the removal timeline. This suspicious behaviour has led to rumours spreading amongst city residents that the debris does not belong to the homeowners.

In another instance, an old, dilapidated four-storey building in the Al-Ramal Al-Janoubi area of Lattakia collapsed due to the earthquake. Eyewitnesses recounted that the demolition and debris removal crews from the city council were quick to remove the building’s debris, and the workers did not hesitate to steal valuable items from amongst the rubble, including gold and jewellery. When one of the former residents asked about what happened, officials in the city council denied any thefts occurred.

In the city of Jableh, the bottom three storeys of a four-storey building collapsed. Although the fourth storey partially survived, it was tilted to a dangerous degree. The building owners managed to evacuate furnishings from the fourth storey with the help of a crew from the Jableh municipality. Due to their close relationship with a senior officer, the building owners could steer the crew’s work towards their benefit. They kept the debris for use in reconstructing the building.

Debris removal crews from Lattakia municipalities are still at work today, clearing rubble and reopening closed roads. Teams from the Civil Defence and the Lattakia Fire Brigade accompany these crews. However, violations continue to occur. A volunteer in an NGO was offered temporary work by a relative who works in a demolition and debris removal crew for one of the municipalities. The invitation indicated that the real compensation for the work is the potential to find valuable belongings among the debris. Within this atmosphere of chaos, personal relationships and nepotism, the young volunteer considered this routine and said he was grateful to his relative for providing him with beneficial work.

Meanwhile, a family in one rural Lattakia village could extract all the contents of their partially collapsed house through a crew affiliated with the village municipality and accompanied by members of one of the security agencies where a family member works. The family protected all the contents of their house, and they did not suffer from any theft or looting. They also knew the location of the debris disposal and visited it to retrieve some recyclable items.

Government Housing Projects for Eligible Earthquake Victims

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Four months after the February 6 earthquake, governmental housing projects for those whose homes were damaged or lost in the disaster are still in the initial stages of debris removal, for the homes destroyed, and foundation digging. 

Chaos, confusion and lack of clarity pervade the official statements and data regarding these projects, although one can already conclude that government housing projects for victims of the earthquake are part of the third longer-term stage of the government’s national action plan, which was announced by the Council of Ministers on February 15 and approved two months later. This third stage stipulates that homes should be rebuilt and the urban landscape improved relative to the situation before the earthquake and war, through the rezoning and rebuilding of informal settlements.

There is also a variance in the nomenclature that Syrian officials use for these planned projects in the governorates of Aleppo and Lattakia; some of them call it alternative housing, for example. In this article, we will adopt the name government housing projects for eligible earthquake victims, to distinguish them from prefabricated temporary housing projects, which are funded by regional and international donors.

In all cases, there are doubts over the possibility of completing the government housing projects within the officially set one-year deadline. The modest number of expected completed homes may not meet the housing needs of the large numbers of affected people. Additionally, the criteria adopted to determine who are the beneficiaries of these homes after their completion remain unclear.

 

Aleppo city

The earthquake caused the total collapse of 53 buildings in the city of Aleppo, with cracks appearing and partial collapses occurring in hundreds of other buildings. On February 19, the governor of Aleppo stated that 220 buildings at risk of collapse had been demolished.

On June 10, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous inspected two housing project sites for the quake victims in Aleppo; one in Al-Haidariya neighbourhood and the other in Al-Maasaraniya suburb for youth housing, east of the city. Arnous said during his visit that the two housing projects “contribute to solving the problem of unlicensed construction.” It is unclear what exactly he meant, but the two areas where these housing projects are being implemented include large informal settlements built on public property, some of which were damaged by the earthquake.

According to state media, four buildings will be constructed in Al-Haidariya, each consisting of 10 storeys with eight apartments each, making 320 apartments in total. The total area of these apartments will be 25,600 square metres, at a total cost estimated at SYP 66.6 billion. Jamal Karim, the head of the studies department at Aleppo city council, said on June 4 that the body studying the project is the Professional Practice Unit at Aleppo University, and that the General Housing Establishment under the Ministry of Public Works and Housing will implement it. Four months after the earthquake, work on this project is still in its early stages, which includes land levelling and digging foundations.

The land on which the project in Al-Haidariya is being built is owned by the Aleppo city council. On March 15, the head of Aleppo city council, Muadd Al-Madlaji, said that the area of land allocated in Al-Haidariya for housing the earthquake victims is 78 hectares large and can accommodate 10,000 residential apartments. It should be noted that Al-Haidariya is a large informal area where the Aleppo city council had previously created a 118-hectare real estate development zone in October 2010, which is also public property. So far, it is unclear what the boundaries of the new housing project for earthquake victims in Al-Haidariya are, and whether it extends to some of the land allocated for the real estate development area.

Meanwhile, the housing project in Al-Maasaraniya suburb east of Aleppo consists of four buildings containing 120 apartments, with each apartment ranging in size between 65 and 90 square metres, and a total floor area of 10,000 square metres, at a total estimated cost of SYP 18.6 billion. According to official announcements, the project is about 28 percent complete and is being carried out by the Military Construction Implementation Corporation (MCIC) of the Ministry of Defense—or Mataa in Arabic. The land on which the housing project in Al-Maasaraniya is being built is owned by the General Housing Establishment.

Al-Maasaraniya neighbourhood is located on the Aleppo-Raqqa highway, near Aleppo International Airport, and includes informal settlements built on public property. In 2002, the General Housing Establishment launched a youth housing project in Al-Maasaraniya. By 2010, only the first phase of the project had been completed, and part of it was handed over to applicants. From 2012 onwards, Al-Maasaraniya, including its youth housing, became a dangerous area due to its proximity to the airport, and until 2016 it was subjected to aerial bombardment by the regime, pushing most of its residents to flee and causing widespread destruction.

Both the projects in Al-Haidariya and Al-Maasaraniya have a one-year implementation deadline, Deputy Governor of Aleppo, Komeit Assi Al-Sheikh, told the state-run Tishreen newspaper on June 6.

The Minister of Public Works and Housing, Suhail AbdulLatif, inspected work at the housing project sites in Al-Haidariya and Al-Maasaraniya on June 3, pointing to the government’s interest in the buildings for eligible people as part of the measures included in the national earthquake response plan. AbdulLatif said that work is being done in a systematic engineering and administrative manner, urging adherence to execution quality and compliance with the set schedule. AbdulLatif chaired a meeting at the governorate building, in which he was briefed on a detailed presentation about the structural work, cladding and implementation phases in the two projects. 

 

Lattakia governorate

In the Lattakia governorate, 50 buildings completely collapsed and dozens partially collapsed due to the earthquake. In mid-May, the governor of Lattakia said there were 1,200 damaged buildings on the verge of collapse needing to be demolished, according to reports from public safety committees.

Similar to Aleppo, housing projects will be established in Lattakia for earthquake victims on lands owned by the General Housing Establishment, as well as lands owned by the Lattakia City Council. The governor of Lattakia, Amer Hilal, confirmed in mid-May that construction had begun on four residential towers in the city’s Al-Thawra Street neighbourhood, and two towers in Al-Gharraf neighbourhood. He added that preparations had also begun to construct two towers in the city of Jableh. The Minister of Public Works and Housing and the governor of Lattakia, inspected on May 13, the status of the works in some of these projects.

Each tower consists of 10 storeys of apartments, each ranging from 80 to 100 square metres. The actual number of apartments in these projects is unclear amid conflicting figures released by official sources; some numbers indicated the construction of 160 apartments on General Housing Establishment-owned land, and 160 apartments on lands owned by the Lattakia City Council. Other sources pointed to 320 apartments on GHE lands, and 80 apartments on city council lands under the management of the GHE and implemented by public construction companies.

In any case, work is currently still in its preliminary stages in all these projects. The Minister of Housing indicated that work is still focused on testing soil resistance at the site intended for the construction of two towers in Jableh, while the General Company for Engineering Studies is preparing engineering studies for the project. After their completion, the excavation work will commence.

On March 15, the head of the Lattakia Governorate Council told the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper that work was underway to provide housing to those who lost their homes in the quake. He added that preparations were underway to build a clear and precise database to identify and count all the victims whose homes were destroyed or cracked beyond repair. The official pointed out that administrative units will work on preparing the site for construction, and the governorate is preparing the infrastructure for sewerage networks, water and all other public services.

Prefabricated Temporary Housing for Earthquake Evacuees

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The first report to be issued by the operations rooms put in place in Syria’s earthquake-stricken governorates, issued on March 14, 2023, confirmed the existence of a medium-term approach to address the housing issue for those affected by the February 6 disaster. This approach involves installing prefabricated housing units to accommodate and host the affected families. It appears that there is a governmental directive to fund these units solely through international or regional donors, such as Iraq, the UAE and China.

Due to the lack of clarity and precise data about this approach, it can be concluded from the information published about it in the official media, that it falls under the second medium-term phase of the national action plan to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake, which was announced by the Council of Ministers on February 25 and approved on April 25.

In these projects, there is a variance in designations and terminologies; from shelter units to temporary housing, or pre-fabricated or alternative housing. In determining the characteristics of this type of housing, this article will use the name: temporary prefabricated housing units for earthquake victims. In all cases, official statements on the subject vary, and contradictions appear in the numbers of these units, their areas, the areas of the zones allocated for them. It is worth noting that the governorates of Aleppo and Lattakia have specified sites for the construction of these homes, while regional and international entities have taken on the task of building the units. A single site can include contributions from more than one grantor.

 

Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces

Prime Minister Hussein Arnous inspected a site in Jabrin area east of Aleppo city, during his visit to Aleppo on June 10, designated for the establishment of 332 temporary prefabricated housing units for earthquake victims. The project is being implemented by the Iraqi Relief Mobilisation, a civil arm of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces, a militia composed of armed Iraqi Shiite factions loyal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The operations room for the Aleppo governorate adopted a plan in March, the details of which were not revealed, to construct temporary prefabricated housing units for those affected by the earthquake, on a 50-hectare area in Jabrin, located near Aleppo International Airport and surrounded by the Sheikh Najjar industrial city and the Aleppo train station. Jabrin was incorporated into the administrative boundaries of Aleppo city in 1996. In 2017, a shelter centre and camps for displaced people were established there.

Aleppo Governor Hussein Diab stated to the media during a visit to the Iraqi Relief Mobilisation project in Jabrin, on April 9, that the installation of the temporary housing units represents a new stage on the road to recovery and a significant point in transitioning from collective shelters. Aleppo governorate has taken responsibility for levelling and preparing the land and carrying out infrastructure works.

On April 15, the state-run SANA news agency announced that technical work crews from the Iraqi Relief Mobilisation initiative, in cooperation with the Aleppo governorate, completed 100 prefabricated units in Jabrin. A member of the executive office in the governorate council said that the governorate of Aleppo has allocated a 13-hectare area in Jabrin to the Iraqi Mobilisation Relief initiative.

The coordinator of the Iraqi initiative, Ghaleb Al-Husseini, told SANA, on April 15 that the project aims to set eventually 500 housing units, 100 of which have been completed and are ready for delivery. Each unit covers an area of 36 square metres, consisting of two bedrooms and a salon, equipped with a solar panel. The units are constructed with iron as the main material used in manufacturing. The units also include sound and thermal insulation materials. These units will be equipped with necessary household furniture for family life, and each one can accommodate six to eight people. Husseini indicated that the first phase of the project is expected to be completed within two months, including the delivery of 300 units.

 

China

In late May, the Minister of Local Administration and Environment Hussein Makhlouf, along with the Chinese ambassador to Syria, Xi Hongoi, signed a document to receive prefabricated units, donated by the Chinese people for the earthquake victims. The Syrian minister stated that the units would be distributed equally between the governorates of Aleppo and Lattakia. These units are part of a plan for medium-term housing centres, and they can be used as mobile clinics or classrooms, depending on the needs of the schools, or as temporary kitchens for shelter centres, among other uses.

The director of the cargo transport regulation office in Aleppo governorate told the Athr Press website on April 20 that a convoy of 13 trucks transported 25 containers containing 100 prefabricated units from a Chinese ship that arrived at Lattakia port to the Jabrin area in Aleppo. The remaining homes are expected to arrive on other ships.

The Lattakia governorate received its share of prefabricated units from China as reported by Al-Watan newspaper, on April 10. An executive office member in Lattakia governorate explained that the donation, which arrived on the ship Lady Mia, included 228 housing units inside 57 containers. These were handed over to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) for distribution to the locations and areas designated by the governorate for the setting of temporary housing for those affected by the earthquake.

The executive office member added that those who will benefit from these units are the earthquake victims whose homes were destroyed and lost in the quake, or those whose homes were damaged and are at risk of collapse. This is according to a specific mechanism that includes the actual victims. The official did not clarify what this specific mechanism is, but he explained that each housing unit consists of one room and its facilities, with an area ranging between 40-50 square metres.

 

United Arab Emirates

In a press conference held in Lattakia on April 17, the head of the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent delegation, Mohammed Al-Kaibi, said that the UAE would construct 1,000 prefabricated housing units for those affected by the earthquake in Lattakia governorate. During the inauguration of the first prefabricated housing unit in Lattakia city’s Al-Gharraf neighbourhood on April 6, Kaibi stated that the purpose of these units is to ease pressure on shelter centres. He added that these would act as temporary shelter centres, comprising 1,000 housing units distributed over seven areas.

The Lattakia governorate earmarked seven sites for the establishment of prefabricated housing projects, as follows: three sites in Lattakia city – two in Al-Gharraf neighbourhood and one in Damsarkho. In the Jableh area, three sites were identified in the neighbourhoods of Al-Naka, Al-Fawar and Al-Faid, and one site was identified in Astamo in the Qardaha area.

The Relief Operations Room in the Lattakia governorate indicated that work would begin at Al-Gharraf. Each housing unit measures 42 square metres and follows a standard design. The Relief Operations Room added that coordination is ongoing with international organisations for the funding of temporary streets, pavements, public lighting and medical points for these projects. Meanwhile, the Governor of Lattakia projected that the completion period would be between six and eight months, including the provision of infrastructure such as water and electricity networks and sewage systems at the sites.

During a meeting with the directors of service and construction agencies in the governorate on April 16, the Lattakia governor stressed the need to expedite the implementation of infrastructure at the sites set aside for the Emirati housing units. He highlighted the necessity for regular monitoring of all the sites and speedy implementation of services and infrastructure, which would help in reducing the delivery time of the completed housing units.

The semi-official newspaper Al-Watan reported on May 9 that the mayor of Qammin, which includes the Astamo village, stated that the UAE project had temporarily halted due to the lack of suitable public land within the Qammin municipality’s jurisdiction. Therefore, the municipality suggested leasing a land for a period of 40 years with automatic renewal, which was rejected by the Ministry of Local Administration. The Ministry insisted on buying a piece of land at an appropriate price and establishing temporary housing units on it. As Al-Watan reported later, the Ministry’s insistence on purchasing the land was due to its desire to ensure the project’s future stability, serving the affected and the administrative unit in general. Indeed, on May 18, the Lattakia governorate council approved Qammin municipality’s request, granting it a donation of SYP 210 million to buy a piece of land to establish temporary homes for those affected by the earthquake in Astamo, with the UAE Red Crescent as the implementing party. 

On May 9, the official SANA news agency reported that the Lattakia governorate had begun legal procedures to transfer the land ownership in Astamo, prior to its preparation and commencement of construction work. The land, measuring 10 dunams and capable of accommodating 85 prefabricated housing units, is expected to have a completed housing project within eight months. 

Earthquake Committees in SIG-Controlled Areas

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Engineering committees that were formed by the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate in northern Syria will work until the end of June to inspect and assess damages caused by the February 6 earthquake. The work comes as part of a comprehensive survey project for buildings and other facilities aimed at inspecting damages to private, public and governmental buildings as well as services in areas controlled by the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government (SIG). 

According to Khaled Al-Othman, head of the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate branch in Aleppo, the survey project began on February 16, 2023, after the initial emergency response period to the earthquake had ended. The project includes 27 “comprehensive survey committees”, each consisting of three engineers, one of whom is a structural consulting engineer to serve as the team leader. 

As of May 29, 2023, the committees have inspected 33,087 buildings in the rural northern part of Aleppo governorate, covering 82 cities, towns, villages and settlements. Of those buildings, two percent were fully destroyed; three percent were severely damaged; 19 percent were moderately damaged; 38 percent were slightly damaged; and 38 percent were still safe. The committees also inspected 105 schools as of May 29, one of which was fully destroyed. Eight schools were severely damaged and 30 were moderately damaged. 

The syndicate also formed three public safety committees tasked with studying the results and reports of the comprehensive survey committees, though only for the buildings that were classified as severely damaged. Afterward, these public safety committees will reinspect the buildings and give their final engineering opinion on whether they should be demolished, removed and their rubble cleared away; or whether the buildings can remain and undergo reinforcement. The three public safety committees are distributed geographically between Azaz, Afrin and Jandares. 

As of May 29, these public safety committees had reassessed 609 of the 992 buildings classified as severely damaged. They transferred the results of these assessments to the demolition and removal committees of various local councils, which have the final say on whether to demolish the buildings. Those demolition committees are composed of three consulting engineers from the Free Syrian Engineers Syndicate, as well as a lawyer and two representatives from the relevant local council and public prosecution. 

So far the demolition and removal committee in Jandares has demolished 39 buildings, 25 of which were done as part of a partnership between local councils and NGOs, and 13 in partnership with the Syrian Civil Defence (also known as the White Helmets). Meanwhile, during the same period, the committee in Afrin demolished and removed three buildings. Some of these demolitions were full in scope and meant tearing down the entire structure, while others were only partial and preserved some parts of the buildings that were still intact and would not be impacted by the demolition of damaged sections — especially ground storeys and basements. 

Through consulting engineers who are members of these demolition and removal committees, the role of the Free Syrian Engineers Syndicate has been to suggest appropriate methods for demolition of each building. The syndicate is also meant to monitor the demolition process in order to maintain public safety and the safety of neighbouring buildings. 

Notably, the Free Syrian Lawyers Syndicate, which is active in opposition-held areas, did not play a key role in following up on the earthquake’s impacts to housing, land and property rights. Instead, the syndicate has been limited to its usual rights and judicial roles, without connection to the demolition of earthquake-damaged buildings, Syndicate Council Secretary Youssef Al-Hussein told The Syria Report. However, lawyers who are members of the syndicate have participated on an individual level in the demolition and removal committees by following up on the legal conditions for those impacted by the damage and helping them obtain documents confirming their rights.  

The Free Engineers Syndicate, meanwhile, is working on a set of standards and criteria for proper building reinforcement methods. They held an engineering conference at the Free University of Aleppo for this purpose on April 5 where participants presented and discussed various studies and research papers. The conference decided to adopt the Syrian Arab Code for the Design and Implementation of Reinforced Concrete Structures and its earthquakes appendix, as well as recommendations related to studies on reinforcement. Such studies are meant to be done separately for each building, and the responsibility for structural reinforcement lies with the local councils and at the expense of the property owners.

In this context, the Jandares local council issued a decision on May 31 stating that any cracked building that undergoes reinforcement without the council’s approval would be considered unlicensed construction. This decision was meant to ensure the application of proper standards for reinforcing cracked buildings, as well as the need for engineering committees to supervise such work. 

Meanwhile, Civil Defence teams have nearly finished removing the rubble of buildings damaged by the earthquake, in accordance with the comprehensive action plan announced on March 9. Deputy Civil Defence Director Mounir Al-Mustafa told The Syria Report that the organisation’s teams have almost finished removing the rubble, and so far have cleared away more than 400,000 square metres of debris from more than 120,000 residential communities. They have also cleared roads in 197 residential communities and done 540 projects to remove cracked walls or roofs in 99 communities. Finally, they have prepared and filled 303,519 square metres of land in SIG-controlled areas. with rubble left behind by the earthquake after recycling it.  

Lattakia Residents Face Uncertainty After Earthquake

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Since the earthquake on February 06, some owners of damaged properties in Lattakia still do not know what could happen to their homes or whether they will receive state compensation. Meanwhile, there has been a lack of meaningful solutions at the government and local levels. 

If people affected by the earthquake do not have relatives or acquaintances of influential officials or cannot pay bribes to officials in municipalities and public safety committees, owners of damaged properties are afraid to ask about their rights. This is due to the security-focused nature of the Syrian state, which handles many day-to-day issues that impact people’s lives with secrecy. Such secrecy extends to data, statistics, zoning plans and detailed government plans. In addition, the fact that many people from the coastal region are affiliated with the security and military apparatuses means that they are used to carrying out orders, and public unaccountability has become the norm. 

Speaking with The Syria Report, one resident impacted by the quake described the situation in the public hallways and offices of the Lattakia governorate as a “black hole”. There, information is not transparent, and people do not receive clear answers to questions about their rights. Notably, specific topics are considered taboo and are prohibited. Nobody knows the exact reasons for these informational red lines, who set them, or whether they are simply baseless rumours. Without clear answers or information, most residents conduct their affairs based on hearsay, which eventually snowballs and can include elements of conspiracy theories. 

For example, at one point, discussion of reinforcement permits became banned. In response, residents exchanged rumours about the possibility of the state providing partial compensation for the costs of reinforcing buildings cracked by the earthquake, according to secret, undisclosed lists of recipients. Furthermore, it has become impossible to ask municipalities about evacuating buildings at risk of collapse or sealing them with red wax. Questions about the end destination of building debris are also off-limits. Currently, people are afraid of asking about temporary prefabricated housing, which countries such as China and the UAE have pledged to help provide. This includes questions about the sites for such housing and potential beneficiaries. Residents have discussed that some prefabricated homes arrived in Lattakia but were afraid to ask municipal employees about this. Some rumours even say there are secret lists of housing recipients that do not include everyone affected by the earthquake. 

Abu Ali owns a two-storey building in the Lattakia countryside that partially collapsed due to the earthquake. He decided to rent a home in Homs and move his family there, fearing the building could collapse in the quake aftershocks. During that period, Abu Ali repeatedly visited his municipality and the Lattakia governorate to see what could be done, i.e. whether there was an entity tasked with reinforcing buildings or whether he would be compensated with alternative housing. He didn’t receive any definitive answers. Instead, his valid questions only raised suspicion and annoyance among the employees he interacted with. Abu Ali sold his car and some agricultural land three months after the earthquake. He moved with his family to a Gulf country. He said he had already endured ten years of war in the hopes of it ending and the situation improving. But after the earthquake, he said it was clear that the state would fail to manage any crisis, even natural disasters. 

Sawsan’s house in a rural Lattakia village partially collapsed in the quake and became uninhabitable. She and her family moved to her mother’s house next door. It wasn’t until three months had passed since the earthquake that a structural safety committee arrived in the village to assess the damage. Sawsan asked the committee members if there was a government plan to compensate earthquake-affected residents with alternative housing and how she could obtain such housing. One of the committee’s engineers responded that they had no information. She fears asking such questions to the Lattakia governorate, feeling that the doors of state institutions are closed off to people like her. 

Mohammad is a financially well-off man who owns an old house in Lattakia. A consulting engineer whom Mohammad hired at his own expense after the earthquake advised that the house was no longer habitable. Mohammad and his family left the house and rented a home in the Lattakia countryside, fearing returning to the damaged building would be dangerous. Meanwhile, the governorate refused to grant Mohammad a permit to reinforce his home and barred him from reinforcing it without a permit. Instead, Mohammad decided to reinforce the back of the building without a licence because it is not visible from the street, so the structural safety committees could not monitor it. His attempts to obtain a legal reinforcement permit for the front of the building were unsuccessful. He said the state employees have been unpredictable and make decisions that do not benefit people, leaving them vulnerable to various risks. According to Mohammad, residents have been left to their own devices to face the earthquake aftermath, as well as an authoritarian government that does not care about them. The governorate often issues contradictory decisions, sometimes facilitating reinforcement permits or restricting them without good reason.  

Samer and his family live in Lattakia. Their entire building showed evident cracks from the earthquake. When Samer wanted to submit a request to the municipality for inspection and evaluation of whether the building was safely habitable, other building residents barred him from doing so, fearing involvement with municipal bureaucracy and the safety committees. Samer’s neighbours worried that if the building underwent inspection, the municipality could force them to evacuate their homes or that they might have to reinforce the structure at their own expense. 

Riyad and Bahaa, two brothers, also found cracks in their building, where they live in adjacent apartments. All of the building residents evacuated to nearby shelter centres. The municipality still has not inspected their building, and the brothers have nowhere to live. So they decided to return to their apartments, despite the risk of the building collapsing. Bahaa says living in a dangerous home is better than waiting in uncertainty at a shelter centre. 

Finally, Shaymaa is from Lattakia, where the building she and her family live in collapsed, killing some family members. Shaymaa is currently staying with remaining family members scattered across relatives’ homes. She heard recently that China would provide prefabricated alternative housing to earthquake-affected Lattakia residents but later heard from a relative that the homes were not meant for families. Instead, her relative told her the homes would be small and go to individuals. Shaymaa is afraid of asking the governorate for more information and says no officials have informed her about any potential alternative housing.

National Action Plan and Official Earthquake Response in Regime-Held Territory

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Updated on May 29, 2023: We corrected the date of the announcement of the government plan to February 25, from April 25 in the original version.

On February 25, the Syrian government announced the so-called “National Action Plan for Dealing with Earthquake Aftermath – People First,” which addresses the impacts of the February 06 earthquake and restores buildings to their pre-earthquake condition. 

According to the announcement, the government started implementing this plan immediately after the quake and will complete it in 2025. The Higher Relief Committee, chaired by the Minister of Local Administration and including ministries and governmental and non-governmental bodies, leads the plan and oversees its execution.

The plan addresses the earthquake’s aftermath and sets objectives and outcomes that the government must achieve. It also establishes performance and impact indicators as well as a timeline. However, though the plan is filled with promises, it lacks efficient implementation mechanisms, funding monitoring, and clear funding sources. 

The most significant issue in the plan is its conflation of the effects of war and the earthquake. The plan’s approach to these impacts is limited to formally zoned areas. It assumes that the solution in non-zoned areas is simply re-zoning by demolition and reconstruction. The plan does not mention preserving rights or dealing with absent property owners.

The plan is divided into four stages: the first stage is emergency response, aimed at meeting basic humanitarian needs immediately after the disaster. This includes technical inspections of damaged buildings and paying rent compensation for those wishing to rent homes temporarily. The first stage is presumed to have ended, but it remains to be seen if the government actually met its objectives.

The plan’s second stage is for recovery and rehabilitation, which involves assisting affected communities in returning to their everyday lives. Syria is currently presumed to be in this phase, which includes removing debris from buildings destroyed during the earthquake, with a completion date by December 2023. It is unclear how buildings destroyed by the quake will be distinguished from those damaged during the war, given an official inclination to blur the two to increase the count of earthquake-damaged buildings. This second stage also includes facilitating the process of obtaining legal documentation for those affected by the quake, ensuring their legal rights and statuses are settled. It also involves assistance for owners of private properties in zoned areas that were affected to rebuild collapsed or at risk of collapsing buildings and repair cracked ones.

Addressing quake damages in informal settlements has been deferred to the third stage of the action plan, which has not yet begun. This stage involves reconstructing and zoning informal settlements and improving the urban environment to make it better than before the earthquake and war. This means rebuilding the earthquake-damaged informal settlements by creating alternate zoned areas under the purview of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing and the Ministry of Local Administration.

The fourth stage provides an enabling environment to systematically deal with the earthquake’s aftermath so that the government bases its decisions on accurate data.

Ambiguities aside, authorities in Damascus continue to fall short in dealing with the effects of the earthquake. The legislative response to the earthquake has only addressed the destruction of real estate properties from a financial perspective. This includes Legislative Decree No. 7 of 2023, which establishes the National Fund to support those affected by the earthquake, aiming to provide financial assistance and help them overcome physical, material or moral damage. While waiting for its executive instructions to be issued, it remains unclear whether Decree No. 7 will provide any compensation for damages to homes and real estate properties.

Similarly, Legislative Decree No. 3 of 2023 granted those affected by the earthquake certain tax exemptions, some of which relate to their wholly or partially demolished properties. The decree enabled them to access loans to repair their damaged properties. Neither Decree No. 3 of 2023 nor its executive instructions mentioned financial compensation for repairing affected properties, rent allowances for those who lost their homes or any commitment to provide alternative housing, even if not free of charge. For someone to benefit from the tax exemptions included in Decree No. 3, a specialised committee must first identify those affected by the earthquake in each afflicted governorate. The affected individuals must submit their official documents to the committee, a police report confirming damage to their properties, and a record from the public safety committee identifying the nature of the damage. According to these conditions, owners of unlicensed buildings not formally registered in the Land Registry may not receive compensation or tax exemption.

Notably, about three months after the earthquake, the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs has yet to issue instructions or decisions to address the widespread destruction of real estate properties in government-controlled areas. The Syrian legislative system does not contain any law related to real estate damaged by natural disasters. Previous laws addressing real estate issues have needed a more serious approach to housing, land, and property rights for those affected by natural disasters or wars. In all cases, these laws distinguished between homes built with permits and those without and between informal settlements and zoned areas.

How are Land Registries in Opposition-Held Areas Responding to the Earthquake?

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The February 06 earthquake has made matters more difficult for authorities responsible for managing land registries in opposition-controlled areas of northwestern Syria. Nevertheless, these authorities have not issued any instructions or laws to address the quake’s impacts amid Syria’s lack of legislative framework addressing the properties affected by natural disasters or wars.

The earthquake damage only adds to property rights threats in opposition-controlled areas that have been subjected to bombing over the past few years and suffer from issues related to documenting property ownership, urban planning, and informal housing. As a result, the authorities responsible for managing property interests in these areas appear incapable of documenting and protecting property rights impacted by the quake.

In Syria, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs is the official body responsible for documenting property ownership and emergency changes to properties. No document related to properties acquires definitive proof unless registered in these records. 

In opposition-controlled areas in northwestern Syria, there are many administrations of this kind, including the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Idlib, part of the Hay’at-Tahrir Al-Sham-affiliated Syrian Salvation Government (SSG). Meanwhile, areas under the control of the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government (SIG) appear more fragmented, with each cadastral affairs department reporting to the local council of its city or town, e.g. the Cadastral Affairs Department in Azaz, the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in the city of Al-Bab, and the Land Registry in Afrin.

SSG-controlled areas

The Directorate of Cadastral Affairs in Idlib has not issued any post-earthquake instructions. A source within the directorate told The Syria Report that nobody asked them to do anything. They explained that the procedures followed by the directorate for collapsed properties are as follows: if a property is listed in the Land Registry and is subdivided and the building has been destroyed or demolished, the boundaries of the land on which the property was built can be accurately redefined based on the records. A detailed plan can also be provided for the building as it was before it was destroyed.

The directorate carries out this work at the request of property owners, especially if disputes arise. However, if the property in question is unauthorised, unregistered, and not subdivided within the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs, it is registered as undeveloped land or land prepared for construction. Therefore, the directorate cannot do anything in the event of an earthquake or other disaster.

This situation is not new in Syria and applies to informal housing areas that have been extensively destroyed during the conflict or demolished by the regime. This has resulted in the loss of rights for the owners of these homes, which existed in reality but were not documented in the property records.

Sources told The Syria Report that the SSG’s Ministry of Local Administration and Services dealt with the earthquake’s aftermath but that their approach focused solely on helping those affected. An informed source within the ministry said they did not issue any new decisions or instructions apart from setting up committees to assess the earthquake damage immediately after the fact.

The resource-limited ministry attempted to help those affected by the earthquake by directing humanitarian organisations operating in Idlib towards repairing damaged homes. The ministry coordinated with these organisations and provided them with information about the damaged buildings, their conditions, and needs, whether for demolition, reinforcement or repair. The earthquake damage assessment committees prepared the report. According to a source in one of the organisations, the ministry asked organisations to prioritise repairing the damaged buildings.

For example, Shafaq, a Syrian NGO registered in Turkey since 2013, received the ministry’s approval to work on repairing homes in the town of Maarat Misrin. The ministry provided the organisation with a list of 50 buildings damaged by the quake needing repair and asked them to continue coordinating with the local council in Maarrat Misrin regarding the buildings whose owners had not yet requested an inspection by the committees. The same applies to organisations working in Salqin, Armanaz and other areas under SSG control.

SIG-controlled areas

The situation in areas controlled by the SIG has been similar in regard to how cadastral affairs departments and directorates dealt with the quake aftermath. 

However, it is worth noting that one initiative in the Jandares area of rural Afrin aimed to preserve property rights. Jandares was the area most affected by the earthquake, resulting in the collapse and removal of many buildings and raising concerns about property rights. Therefore, the land registry in Azaz collaborated and met with the Next Day organisation, an NGO concerned with housing, land and property rights, to form a survey committee to determine the locations and boundaries of the destroyed buildings in Jandares, similar to delimitation and census work.

There is an ongoing crisis in addressing property issues in Afrin due to several main factors. Firstly, the property database before 2011 in Afrin exists only within Aleppo’s main cadastral affairs directorate. Second, many property documents left behind by the majority-Kurdish authorities’ land registry during their control of the area between 2012-2018 mostly related to unauthorised construction. Third, significant informal urban expansion has occurred recently, particularly after the opposition took control in 2021.

The Free Engineers Union, Ministry of Local Administration and Services and local councils have all dealt with the quake aftermath in SIG areas. Committees are formed in cooperation with these entities to inspect damaged buildings, assess their technical condition, and determine their needs. However, due to limited resources, local humanitarian organisations bore the burden of funding.

For example, on February 19, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Engineers Union and Mercy Without Borders, an NGO established in 2012 and registered in Turkey. They launched a comprehensive survey project for facilities and buildings to assess earthquake damage in affected areas in northern Syria. Under this memorandum, the organisation provided the necessary equipment and logistical services for the assessment process and secured wages for the assessment teams in Azaz and Afrin.

In Jandares, the Comprehensive Engineering Survey Project Management for Facilities and Buildings, the Public Safety Committee of the Free Syrian Engineers Union, the Presidency of the Local Council in Jandares city, and engineers from the local council Service Office agreed on the survey, evaluation and supervision of the debris removal from damaged buildings. This process then began in early March, following the survey results.

Also in March, the Ministry of Local Administration and Services formed the Central Committee for Damage Assessment and Surveying in coordination with the Free Engineers Union; the Support Coordination Unit; representatives of the Free Aleppo Governorate Council; local councils in Jandares, Afrin, Azaz, and Suoran; the Syrian Civil Defence, or White Helmets; the Stability Support Unit; the Free Aleppo Lawyers Union; and the Free Aleppo University. These groups decided to form subcommittees in areas affected by the earthquake under the supervision of the SIG to carry out a comprehensive assessment of the earthquake damage, submit proposals and implement them all while preserving housing, land, and property rights.

Public Safety Committees in Lattakia: Chaos, Corruption, Nepotism

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Two months after the February 06 earthquake, the public safety committees in the Lattakia governorate do not appear to be performing their duties effectively. Affected residents have accused the committees of neglecting to inspect damaged buildings, disorganisation, and corruption.

Facing heavy pressure to inspect damaged buildings right after the earthquake, people soon turned to any influential relatives they had in the state, security agencies and the military or resorted to bribing officials to pressure the committees and direct them to inspect their homes early on. 

According to a local correspondent for The Syria Report, the earthquake damaged a recently constructed four-storey building in the Project No. 10 area in Lattakia. After a long wait, building residents lost hope that the committees would inspect it. Fearing the possibility of aftershocks worsening the damage, residents decided to hire a consulting engineer from the Engineers’ Syndicate to assess the damage at their own expense. The engineer advised the building residents to reinforce one cracked central column, which they did promptly. Residents split the cost of this work, with each flat paying SYP 2 million. After they finished, they learned that a committee was on its way to inspect the building. At this point, the residents asked for help from a high-ranking security official to intervene and prevent the committee from inspecting the building.

When the committees inspect damaged buildings, they are meant to classify them into three main categories: slightly damaged, severely damaged, and in need of reinforcement, or at risk of collapse and in need of demolition. Slightly damaged buildings pose no danger to residents and can be repaired without a permit or an engineering study. However, the committee must provide a descriptive report for severely damaged buildings. The relevant local administrative unit then requests another committee, composed of experienced engineers from the Engineers’ Syndicate, to conduct a study for reinforcement. Based on that study, the administrative unit grants a permit for reinforcing the building. Finally, for buildings at risk of collapse that the committees deem necessary to demolish, they seal their entrances with red wax, evacuate the residents and prohibit them from returning home. 

Ward lives in a fourth-storey flat in a building in the Project No. 7 area of Lattakia. The earthquake cracked a main column in his building. Residents waited for the safety committees to inspect the building to no avail. Ward visited the Lattakia governorate building on several different days, submitting official requests for inspection more than once and to more than one department. When he lost hope of receiving a response, Ward paid a bribe of SYP 300,000 to one of the committee members, obtaining a report stating that the building was only slightly damaged. The report was issued without any actual inspection of the building. Based on the report, residents paid themselves for reinforcement work. According to Ward, no one visited the building to inspect it, neither from the committees, the Syndicate, nor the governorate, and no one questioned them about the reinforcement work they carried out.

Meanwhile, the building where Marwa lives with her husband in rural Lattakia was damaged in the quake. A public safety committee inspected the building and found it severely damaged and needing reinforcement. However, the committee asked the couple to refrain from reinforcing it themselves but to wait for the municipality to refer the building to an engineering expertise committee to study the best reinforcement method and obtain a permit. However, Marwa and her husband went to an engineer they know who works on one of the committees to change the report and re-classify the building as only slightly damaged. As a result, they could reinforce the structure without waiting for the engineering expertise committee.

Things were no better in cases where the committees inspected damaged buildings, categorised them as needing minor reinforcement, but then took no clear subsequent actions, leaving the residents confused. For example, Salma, a widow and mother of a special needs child, lives in a damaged house in rural Lattakia. A committee of municipal engineers visited her home, saw the cracks and deemed the house safe for her to remain during reinforcement work. According to a committee member, the house would be safe if there are no future earthquakes. However, for Salma, the repair process is prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile, committee members said neither the municipality nor any other official body would do the reinforcement work. Though there is a chance Salma could be partially compensated if she pays for the reinforcement herself, the compensation mechanism has not been clarified. 

Rizq owns several apartments within a building in an informal neighbourhood of Lattakia. Cracks appeared in several parts of the building after the quake. So he turned to engineer friends and decided to reinforce the building himself at his own expense. During the reinforcement work, one of the governorate committees tried to intervene and stop him. However, Rizq brandished a personal weapon at the committee members and threatened them not to approach.

In another case, the third and top storey of a building owned by retired military general Abu Haidar in a rural Lattakia village partially collapsed. Cracks also appeared on the remaining floors. Abu Haidar hired an engineer and a work crew from Damascus that reinforced the building and rebuilt the collapsed part within a week of the earthquake. The village municipality did not intervene in Abu Haidar’s case. Still, it prevented other residents who didn’t have such connections from repairing their properties without permission.

Meanwhile, in Lattaka city, Wafaa owns an apartment in a building that the committees sealed with red wax and classified as at risk of collapse and need of demolition. After losing hope of receiving any compensation or alternative housing, the building residents decided to reinforce the building out of pocket and paid SYP 3 million to bribe the committee to change the building’s classification to damaged and requiring reinforcement in their report,  the committee agreed to the change. 

Explained: Earthquake Loans

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With no comprehensive plan in place to rebuild after the February 06 earthquake, the Syrian government’s approach has focused on providing tax exemptions for those affected and facilitating access to loans so they can fund repairs and reinforcement work. 

These exemptions and promises of loans are no substitute for total or partial reconstruction and rehabilitation of quake-damaged homes. Instead, this method of assistance indicates the inability of the Syrian state to compensate impacted residents with permanent alternative housing and its evasion of responsibilities toward their rights to housing, land and property. Granting loans, even if they are interest-free, means turning the matter of repair and reinforcement into a personal issue with costs borne by the owners of the damaged homes.

Support loan

On February 17, Syria’s Al-Wataniya Microfinance Bank announced the Sanad, or “support,” loan dedicated to repairing and rehabilitating earthquake-damaged homes in Aleppo, Lattakia and Hama governorate. The loans would have a ceiling of up to SYP 18 million interest-free, with a repayment period of six years. In 2011, the Syria Trust for Development, the Syrian Computer Society, and the Small and Medium Projects Development Agency jointly established Al-Wataniya Microfinance Bank.

The bank allocated SYP 10 billion for these loans, with an average of SYP 10 million per loan, aiming to cover expenses for 1,000 damaged homes. For the loans, the bank required a matrix of different types of collateral that can be combined in case one item is insufficient, such as proof of income, guarantees of two individuals, or mortgage of a car, agricultural land, house, gold or insurance policies.

Bank CEO Munir Haroun told the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper on February 19 that borrowers need to obtain a structural safety report for the building that will undergo repairs. He added that the loan would not exclude residents of informal settlements. According to Haroun, the bank will disburse the loans in instalments and appoint committees to assess the quake damage to estimate the size of the initial instalments and conduct subsequent inspections on the progress of repairs. He explained that, for example, an income of SYP 100,000 can obtain a loan of SYP 1.5 million, with a monthly instalment of SYP 35,000. If the applicant is a private sector employee earning SYP 500,000, they can get a loan of up to SYP 10 million. As a merchant with a commercial register and a monthly income of SYP 2 million, they can obtain the maximum loan amount.

On March 5, a banking expert and consultant, Amer Shahda, told Al-Watan that those who actually need this loan could not obtain it, describing the loans as “incapable of fulfilling their tasks” and unsuitable for citizens’ living conditions and the current inflation. Furthermore, he explained that the value of the loan, with a ceiling of SYP 18 million to be repaid over six years, means that the monthly repayment instalment amounts to SYP 250,000, which, in comparison to the incomes of those impacted by the quake, shows they will be unable to pay it. 

Decree No. 3

Legislative Decree No. 3 of 2023 granted people affected by the earthquake certain tax exemptions, some of which relate to totally or partially demolished real estate. The decree also stipulated granting easements in paying outstanding loan instalments and obtaining new loans from public banks for those impacted properties.

The decree allowed public banks to grant interest-free loans with a ceiling of SYP 200 million to those impacted by the quake who wish to fully or partially rebuild or fully or partially rehabilitate their properties. They would have ten years to repay such loans, while repayment of the first instalment is due three years after granting the loan. The state treasury bears the interest and commissions resulting from granting these loans.

Meanwhile, Article 13 of the decree’s executive instructions, issued by the Ministry of Finance in early April, allowed public banks to postpone loan instalments due from affected clients, and collection of repayments would resume on April 1, 2024. Due to this postponement, no contractual interest, delay interest, delay fines or fees shall be added. The postponement applies to all types of loans and facilities previously granted by public banks to those affected by the quake. Meanwhile, Article 14 granted those affected the right to obtain loans from public banks for restoration, rehabilitation or reconstruction, with the amount for such loans determined according to the purpose of the loan, the donor bank’s policies, and the procedures for estimating the value of the funds required. The loan is granted on a case-by-case basis for each independent piece of real estate that faced damage, including facilities, shops, houses, or other buildings. They may be fully damaged, partially damaged or cracked and need reinforcement work. 

Applicants may not finance a single piece of real estate more than once, whether from the same bank or another, taking into account the priority in granting loans to those applying for the first time. Loans granted according to this measure are exempt from the financial solvency requirement set out in the banking operations regulations without prejudice to the banks’ right to recover the necessary collateral. While each bank applies interest rates to these granted loans, ensuring coverage of the minimum borrowing cost, the state’s public treasury bears the contractual interests and commissions resulting from granting these loans.

At the same time, upon issuance of the decree’s executive instructions, a decision was issued by the Central Bank’s Credit and Monetary Council stipulating that deferral of loan instalments due is not considered a restructuring or rescheduling process for banks, according to a report published April 03 by state-run newspaper Tishreen. This is all while preserving the internal credit rating and the level at which the client was classified within this system, and the provisions withheld against them regardless of the instalment deferral.

Article 2 of the Credit and Monetary Council’s decision exempted beneficiaries from repaying the amounts due on inquiry request operations. In return, the bank’s board of directors or general management is responsible for estimating the value of the loan to the affected party based on the expertise report issued by the committee formed under Decree No. 3. Interest rates applicable to each bank will be applied to the loans granted under this decree, taking into account the executive instructions of the decree, particularly concerning the state’s public treasury bearing the contractual interests and commissions. In addition, public banks must consider the loan duration granted to each beneficiary, plus the due date of the first instalment, when calculating the total contractual interests and commissions resulting from granting these loans. Regarding collateral, the decision expressly confirms the application of the current operational systems adopted by public banks to the accepted guarantees for loans granted under Decree No. 3.

Under the decree’s executive instructions, committees will be formed to identify those impacted by the earthquake in each affected governorate. ​​Any affected parties must submit their official documents to these committees, a police report confirming the damage to their properties, and an accredited structural safety committee report from their governorate. The committee then prepares minutes of its work in the completed areas sequentially. After that, lists with the names of the affected persons are issued by the governor’s decision.

The state-run newspaper Al-Baath reported on April 04 that a governor chairs each committee and includes the chairperson of the governorate council, heads of the administrative units in the affected areas, the finance director and service institutions such as water, electricity, telecoms, technical services and real estate services, the head of the Engineers’ Union branch, a representative of the Syria Trust for Development, and the local area representative of the affected region.

Explained: Earthquake Insurance

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Since the February 6 earthquake, Syrian officials have discussed the need for an insurance policy for natural disasters. The idea for such a policy developed rapidly and may soon be put on the market. 

Home insurance policies are considered essential to protecting properties from various risks, such as fires, theft and leakages. However, insurance specifically for earthquakes requires a separate policy in regions that often experience tremors. Such insurance could prove useful if a home collapses, even if most earthquake insurance policies contain many exceptions, making them useless in some cases of partial collapse or damage to unreported furnishings. 

Syria’s insurance market is still relatively small. The only mandatory insurance policy in place is for third-party car insurance, covering all types of vehicles. Some insurance companies have also offered policies for homes, offices, and private companies to protect them and their contents from certain risks, especially fires and theft. However, these policies are not yet widespread, especially for homes. 

The Syrian government’s enthusiasm for bringing forth an earthquake insurance policy has come as official talk of establishing a national disaster management authority or fund waned. On April 03, Qassioun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the People’s Will Party, reported that the new insurance project would solidify government irresponsibility towards people impacted by potential future disasters and be biassed toward the owners of the companies. 

On February 14, Ibrahim Al-Adi, an economics professor at Damascus University, told the state-owned Al-Baath newspaper that mandatory home and building insurance could lighten repair costs for people during natural disasters. However, he added that the mandatory insurance should only be for new homes and buildings, as well as bridges, roads, and other large structures, and should be a requirement for obtaining a construction permit. Mr Al-Adi also suggested that the insurance money should be within state-affiliated insurance companies. 

On March 08, the state-owned Tishreen newspaper published an article in which the manager of the Syrian Insurance Supervisory Commission confirmed that a month after the February 06 earthquake, the state-owned Syrian Insurance Company and private insurance companies were expected to pay no more than SYP 2 billion in compensation after inspecting earthquake-related damage. This low compensation to quake-affected policyholders is due to low coverage for natural disasters, according to the manager of the commission.

The Syrian Insurance Supervisory Commission, headed by the Minister of Finance, is the body that regulates Syria’s insurance and reinsurance sector. Syria has 12 private insurance companies, one public company (the Syrian Insurance Company) and one reinsurance company, the Arab Union Reinsurance Company. All these companies are part of the Syrian Insurance Federation. 

Insurance expert George Ashqar told Tishreen on March 08 that the government’s natural disaster insurance initiative is essentially a call to share the costs of future disasters. He added that this type of insurance has specific characteristics and requires certain conditions and regulations to be in place before being sold. The most important of these conditions is that buildings considered for insurance must be earthquake resistant. This condition must be confirmed by an official body that issues a document proving the structural resistance of any building in question. 

Mr Ashqar added that if the government is looking to provide compensation and rebuild and restore buildings destroyed by natural disasters, insurance companies should bear some responsibility by selling policies that cover such risks at prices that must undergo long-term study. However, because the potential damages from natural disasters are enormous and costly, insurance companies cannot bear the full risks. As such, they must forge ties with reinsurance companies to help bear a part of the risk with them, Mr Ashqar added. Reinsurance is insurance that one insurance company buys from another to protect itself from the risks incurred by large compensation claims. 

But the Syrian government appears to be rushing to introduce this new policy. A technical committee from the Syrian Insurance Federation has already put together a study on the new insurance policy and made several proposals about the value of instalments and the maximum compensation ceiling.

According to the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper, on March 28, the Ministry of Finance and the Insurance Supervisory Commission discussed the technical committee’s proposals, including the implementation mechanism, tools and statistics, sources of information and data, and the difficulties such a programme might face, mainly a lack of options for foreign reinsurance. Al-Watan did not clarify the reason for this lack of options, but it appears to be related to sanctions. In addition, foreign reinsurance companies will not accept financial transactions in Syrian pounds, while Syrian insurance companies will receive the value of insurance policies in Syrian pounds.

On March 29, Ammar Nasser Agha, dean of the Faculty of Economics at Damascus University, told Al-Watan that Syrian insurance companies could not bear the risks of earthquake damages. He added that an earthquake insurance group should be established. Here, insurance funds for homes could be collected and a portion of it given to local reinsurance companies, which would provide a portion of the money to foreign companies for reinsurance. The insurance money can then be invested over the medium and long term, with the investment going toward assets that can be quickly liquidated in the event of an earthquake. 

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