Almost twelve years into Syria’s devastating civil war, the scale, severity, and complexity of humanitarian needs remain extensive. Having become the world’s largest displacement crisis, 70 per cent of the population are now in need of humanitarian assistance.

The ongoing fuel and electricity crisis in Syria has left many families without means of power.

The ETC was activated in Syria on 14 January 2013 to provide shared security communications and internet connectivity services to the humanitarian community responding to the crisis. The ETC is operating under the Whole of Syria (WoS) approach which also comprises activities in neighbouring countries for an effective humanitarian response inside Syria.

In February 2023, two devastating 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes near the Türkiye-Syria border caused one of the biggest disasters to impact the region in recent times. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and many thousands of buildings have collapsed. The earthquakes struck as the humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria was already at the highest level since the conflict began, with 4.1 million people relying on humanitarian assistance to subsist.

The ETC in Syria is responding to the new crisis by coordinating with the interagency humanitarian community and planning to strengthen security communications in Hama―heavily impacted in the earthquakes―to support the scale-up of field activities.