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Public Safety Committees in Lattakia: Chaos, Corruption, Nepotism

25-04-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

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. 

https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png 0 0 Rand Shamaa https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png Rand Shamaa2023-04-25 18:36:392023-05-04 08:04:07Public Safety Committees in Lattakia: Chaos, Corruption, Nepotism

Jandares Two Months on from the Earthquake

11-04-2023/in HLP, News /by Rand Shamaa

Over two months after the February 06 earthquake, the town of Jandares still suffers the impacts of the damage. The town is located in the Afrin region of the Aleppo governorate which is under the control of the Syrian Interim Government (SIG).

The quake virtually destroyed Jandares. It killed around 800 residents, destroyed 278 buildings, and damaged 1,100 buildings. The owners of these destroyed and damaged homes still live across four main shelter centres near the town and in small camps inside Jandares. 

Most original residents of Jandares are Kurds, and in 2012 the majority-Kurdish People’s Protection Units took control of the town. Then in 2018, Turkish-backed opposition factions seized Jandares in Operation Olive Branch, displacing many original residents. Meanwhile, many people forcibly displaced by regime forces from other parts of Syria formerly controlled by the opposition, namely Rural Damascus, Homs, and Hama, arrived and settled in Jandares. According to local council estimates, the town’s population in 2022 was around 115,000 people. 

Immediately after the earthquake, the Aleppo branch of the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate formed comprehensive survey committees (Earthquake Damage Assessment Committees) to conduct field surveys on the 1,100 affected buildings in Jandares. In mid-March, these committees completed their work. They classified the buildings into three categories according to their level of damage: slight, moderate and severe. There were 45 severely damaged buildings. 

Afterwards, Jandares Local Council requested a central public safety committee, consisting of nine syndicate engineers, to inspect the severely damaged buildings and issue a final recommendation for either their removal or reinforcement. The committee decided to completely demolish most of these 45 buildings or demolish parts of them and reinforce the remaining sections.

It should be noted that the Engineers’ Syndicate signed a memorandum of understanding on February 19, 2023, with the non-governmental organisation Mercy Without Limits, which was founded in 2012 and licensed in Turkey. According to the memorandum, the organisation provides equipment, pays for building inspections, covers transportation costs and compensates the engineers.

The survey committees and the Central Safety Committee handed their results to the local council, which is now responsible for implementation. The local council has tasked its demolition and removal committee with issuing a final decision regarding the damaged buildings. Then, on April 06, the local council published a list of ten damaged buildings to destroy and gave their owners a three-day deadline to object. It is not yet clear what the legal mechanisms are in case any of the building owners object. Still, at the time of writing, the council has yet to receive any objections. Therefore, after the three-day deadline ends, the demolition and removal committee will knock down those buildings and remove their rubble. 

In the next stage, the Central Safety Committee will identify moderately damaged buildings requiring reinforcement. It may then decide to reinforce or demolish some buildings, as some moderate-risk buildings have suffered further damage with the earthquake aftershocks.

Samir Bouidani, head of the Central Safety Committee in the Aleppo branch of the Free Syrian Engineers’ Syndicate, explained to The Syria Report some of the engineering standards used to determine the safety of local buildings. For example, the committee removed any building that showed a visible slant, even with no cracks. And any decision to reinforce a building depends on the cost not exceeding 50 percent of the cost of its concrete structure. Here, costs are the deciding factor.

According to Mr Bouidani, determining which reinforcement method to use is not the Central Safety Committee’s job, as each building requires its own specialised engineering study. Therefore, the Engineers’ Syndicate, in coordination with the local council and with the consent of the building owners, refer the matter to private engineering offices licensed. It is still unclear whether any governmental or non-governmental organisations will contribute or fund such reinforcement and restoration for buildings that require this work before being inhabited again.

On the other hand, individual restoration projects on slightly damaged houses have taken place in the town, albeit out of the owners’ pockets. Such work includes rebuilding walls using blocks and cement, plastering, repairing windows, doors, and external walls and repairing inner courtyards. This restoration work often does not include any metal or reinforced concrete for columns and beams. These projects pose risks, including masking the harmful effects of the earthquake on the building’s structural mass, which could mean dangers to these buildings in the future.

As for removing the debris, work is still unorganised as there is no legal mechanism to protect the rights of homeowners’ rubble. NGOs are still working to remove debris from Jandares in cooperation with the local council and the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets. On April 04, the Syrian NGO Takaful Al-Sham, registered in Turkey since 2013, launched the Balsam Project to remove debris and rehabilitate several markets and roads within Jandares, according to the “cash for work” principle. However, like other projects launched by non-governmental organisations, Balsam did not clarify that the debris is the last evidence of the owners’ ownership of their collapsed homes or the fate of the original properties and possessions upon which they were built.

https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png 0 0 Rand Shamaa https://hlp.syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Logo-300x81.png Rand Shamaa2023-04-11 21:34:192023-04-12 13:27:23Jandares Two Months on from the Earthquake

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