BAB ALHAWA, SYRIA - World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday urged the international community to help earthquake-hit northwest Syria, on his first ever visit to rebel-held areas of the war-ravaged country. “The people of northwest Syria need the assistance of the international community to recover and rebuild,” Tedros told reporters after entering from neighbouring Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. “I call on the international community, governments, philanthropists, individuals, to dig deep,” added Tedros, the highest-ranking United Nations official to visit the rebel-held area since civil war broke out almost 12 years ago. The WHO chief had already travelled to government-controlled Aleppo and Damascus the same week as the February 6 disaster that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Tedros on Wednesday visited several hospitals and a shelter near the Turkish border for people displaced by the disaster, an AFP correspondent said. Turkish-backed officials in Syria have put the death toll in rebel-held areas at 4,537, while the Syrian government has said 1,414 people were killed in areas under its control. The UN has launched a $397 million appeal to help quake victims in Syria, but Tedros warned that “we are not getting as much as what is needed for this emergency”.
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