The region around Qardaha, in north-west Syria, did not attract much media attention in the aftermath of the earthquake. Qardaha is well known among Syrians as the hometown of the president Bashar al-Assad, and the region in general as a stronghold of regime loyalists. And yet even here the population did not receive the necessary aid. The earthquake impacted people who were already experiencing an economic crisis, afflicted by inflation, corruption, and the absence of the State.