‘It’s destroying me’: Syrian Americans haunted by earthquake devastation plea for world’s help

CNN — Every time Abdulrahman Al-Dahhan closes his eyes at night, he hears the screams of friends and family in Syria pleading for help. “It’s a crisis within a crisis,” says Leena Zahra, a Syrian American and humanitarian worker focused on increasing mental health access to globally displaced people. “‘Will I just be another statistic or another undignified picture that is circulated but not humanized?’” The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that it was the first group to send a team to provide mental-health support to earthquake victims in Syria. “We don’t have time to heal those wounds, we are literally shouting from the rooftops, please don’t get distracted, please share, please donate, please help.” ‘Don’t move on and forget about us’ A week has passed since the earthquake, but voice messages from people sharing traumatizing stories from the ground have not stopped flooding Al-Dahhan’s phone. But the issue doesn’t stop with short-term relief efforts, Zahra says, arguing that activists must pressure the US and other countries to “activate disaster mechanisms and push for access to hard-to-reach communities.” “We’re repeating the same things we’ve said in the past 12 years,” Zahra said.