SIX months on from the earthquake that devastated Syria, a former Limerick parish priest says that “things have never been as bad”.
Fr Tony O’Riordan, a former Moyross parish priest, is now working to provide aid in Syria in the wake of the earthquake and says that people are at the point of desperation.
Speaking to the Limerick Post, Fr Tony said that a lot needs to be done before Syria can think about rebuilding.
“The country is still at war, this is the 13th year of the war so the country needs a ceasefire, it needs a constitutional solution to the issues that give rise to the conflict.”
“Syria is isolated from most of the world because of sanctions, so all of these issues need to be resolved before there’s even a platform of halting the downward spiral.”
“At the moment it’s not development, we’re trying to respond to a worsening situation. In the two years that I have been here, things have never been as bad,” Fr Tony said.
Working with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Tony and his team are helping out providing food packages and medical and education services.
“We have a range of health services, mainly paediatric, gynaecology, and general medicine at primary healthcare level, and then we support people’s access to life-saving surgery,” the former Moyross parish priest explained.
Fr Tony explained that, in one case, a teenage girl came to them needing brain surgery and with their help is now well on the road to recovery.
“I’m fairly confident that without our intervention and the support of people who make that intervention possible, that young girl would have died,” Tony said.
Fr Tony explained that families are so desperate now that they are forced to take their children out of school and send them to work in an effort to support their families.
“Last Wednesday I was out in one of the villages that we work in, just outside Aleppo, and I met an 11-year-old boy who for the last two years has been out of school full time, working in a local factory, and he’s one of the two million plus children who are engaged in labour to support the family.”
“I could see he’s a bright young boy but he’s missing out completely on education and he has to work seven days a week to bring in some money to support the family.”
The JRS also offers education programmes for children who have to give up school, and programmes to try and build communities amongst displaced people.
While the physical environment in Syria might be very different to Moyross, Tony says there are also similarities.
“What’s similar is in these situations, whether it’s in Moyross in Limerick or in any of the places that we work in Syria, you meet people of phenomenal character who are committed to their community in a most inspiring way.”
“Often people who could leave, whether it was leave Moyross or leave Limerick, chose to stay and found pride in being from Moyross despite the challenges and continued to work for the good.”
“Here in Syria, there’s an immense pride in what Syria is and I meet the most amazing people,” he said.
The work of the Jesuit Refugee Service would not be possible without donations from the public and Tony says the people of Limerick have been very generous so far.
Anyone who is interested in supporting the work of Fr Tony’s team and the Jesuit Refugee Service can see IJI.ie for information on how to donate.
