After the February 6 earthquake devastated large areas in Syria and neighboring Turkey and killed more than 55,000 people, Ankara closed the main border crossing with rebel-held areas in Syria to patients.

Many patients living in these northwestern regions, where medical facilities are dilapidated, used to use the Bab al-Hawa crossing daily to seek treatment in Turkey, which has for years supported rebels in Syria.

A week before the quake, 27-year-old Oum Khaled gave birth to her daughter, Islam, who suffers from atrophy and heart defects, in a displacement camp in the Idlib region.

"Her condition is getting worse, she is losing weight," said the mother of four in a tent in the camp. "When she cries, she turns blue and her heart beats fast," she said, saying Islam sometimes has great difficulty breathing.

Lack of equipment

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 50% of health facilities are out of service in Syria, following years of war, triggered in 2011 after the repression of pro-democracy protests.

The situation is particularly worrying in rebel-held areas, home to more than three million people, half of whom are internally displaced, and where hospitals lack equipment, staff and medicines.

Syrian Firas al-Ali, who has a benign pituitary tumor, stands at the entrance to his home in Qah, Idlib province, Syria, on May 10, 2023 © OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP

Fearing for Islam's life, a doctor recommended that Umm Khaled have her operated on quickly.

Local authorities used to send most people with heart disease, cancer and those requiring complex surgeries to Turkey, via Bab el-Hawa, before it was closed to the sick.

The crossing remained open only for UN humanitarian aid, goods and Syrians from Turkey wishing to visit their relatives in the enclave.

Firas al-Ali, 35, who has a benign pituitary tumor, travelled regularly to Turkey, where he underwent surgery and received his medication.

He was supposed to go there on February 23, but the passage was then closed.

"Urgently"

Firas now sees blurry and feels severe pain in his head. "My treatment, which I must never stop, is not available here, or it is beyond my means," says the man with pronounced dark circles and pale complexion.

Rabie, a teenager with cancer, is examined by a doctor at the central hospital in Idlib, in the rebel-held city in northwestern Syria, on May 2, 2023 © OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP

Since the closure of Bab al-Hawa, the hospital run by the NGO Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and based in Idlib, the only one treating cancerous tumors in the region, has been overwhelmed.

"After the earthquake, patients poured in," says pediatric oncologist Abd el-Razzaq Bakkour.

In the paediatric ward alone, the hospital received 30 of the 70 patients who usually underwent treatment in Turkey.

"Forty patients are no longer undergoing chemotherapy and (...) some risk dying," Bakkour said.

"Many of them should be admitted to Turkey urgently," adds the doctor, who specifies that his establishment lacks in particular "devices used to make a diagnosis".

On Monday, Turkey finally reopened the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, but only for people with cancer.

Youssef Hajj Youssef, who has lung cancer, was due to undergo chemotherapy in southern Turkey on the day of the earthquake, but the tragedy prevented him from doing so.

Since he interrupted his treatment, "the size of the tumor has increased by three centimeters," says the sexagenarian from the SAMS oncology center.

"After the earthquake, we cancer patients suffered a lot. We are all waiting to be able to return to Turkish hospitals."

© 2023 AFP