Half of trapped Raqqa population are children, says UN official Syrian regime forces, allies advance against Daesh
DAMASCUS: Half of the estimated 20,000 people trapped in Syria’s northern city of Raqqa are children, an official with the UN children’s agency said, describing the traumatizing experiences of children who recently fled the rule of Daesh group militants as “absolutely staggering.”
Fran Equiza spoke to The Associated Press in Damascus following a visit to three camps in northern Syria where he met displaced children from Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, both held by Daesh.
“I was completely overwhelmed,” he said. “There are 10,000 children trapped in Raqqa in extremely dire conditions. No electricity, no water, probably very little food ... and the battle almost every day.”
Raqqa is the self-proclaimed capital of the Daesh. US-backed Syrian fighters are bearing down on the city from all sides and as the fighting intensifies, thousands of civilians are finding it increasingly hard to escape the city, which is facing constant shelling by the US-led coalition and allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Daesh has placed mines around the city.
“The level of suffering, losing friends, relatives, family of these children is absolutely staggering,” he said.
Equiza appealed to all sides to allow for safe passage and respect civilians, “especially the children (who) have no responsibility whatsoever.”
He warned that the situation was about to get worse, as more people flee from the Daesh-held eastern province of Deir Ezzor where the Syrian regime forces and allied militiamen were on the offensive against Daesh.
“We need support in order to be able to provide these children the rights they are entitled,” Equiza said.
Amnesty International said people in Raqqa face a “deadly labyrinth,” coming under fire from all sides.
The UN recently called for pauses in fighting against Daesh in Raqqa to help civilians escape increasingly deadly battles.
“Now is the time to think of possibilities, pauses or otherwise that might facilitate the escape of civilians,” said Jan Egeland, head of the UN’s humanitarian task force for Syria.
Egeland said any humanitarian pause would of course not involve Daesh, which is doing its “absolute best to use (civilians) as human shields.”
An opposition monitoring group and a Syrian military arm said regime forces and their allies had captured a wide area from Daesh in the country’s center.
The regime-controlled Syrian Central Military Media (SCMM) and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops and their allies were now in control of the area between the central town of Sukhna and Shaer to the west. On Thursday, troops surrounded the area of 2,000 sq. km in the Syrian desert, widely referred to as Badia.
In recent months, Syrian troops and allied militiamen have advanced on three fronts against Daesh under the cover of Russian airstrikes. One of their main targets is the contested eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where the terrorists have imposed a siege for years on a small regime-held pocket.
SCMM said military experts are now dismantling explosives left behind by the extremists in Badia.
In the country’s north, where one of the government attacks is taking place, a Syrian journalist was killed on Saturday while covering the fighting with Daesh.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said its correspondent Mohammed Nasr, 34, was killed in the northern province of Raqqa.
Syria is one of the most dangerous places for journalists.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 14 were killed in 2016 alone. The latest death brings this year’s toll to four.