Kurd families f lee to Iraq as armies advance

With an array of armies zeroing in on their homes since Turkey launched an offensive on northern Syria, Kurdish families have been joining fellow Kurds across the border in Iraq to escape rockets and bombardment.

Rosine Omar, 28, reached the safety of Berdarch camp in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan from the flashpoint town of Ras Al-Ain, a key target of the assault on Kurdishheld northeast Syria that Ankara launched on Oct. 9.

“In Ras Al-Ain, the situation was unbearable. We heard rocket fire and were worried the situation would get even worse,” she said.

Apart from the immediate dangers of a conflict that has killed dozens of civilians, Omar feared the advance of not only Turkish forces but also of Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and government troops.

He said that they were also scared that Daesh or the Free Army (of Syrian rebels) would “occupy our town, so we preferred to leave because we had to get our children out of this war.”

From the early hours of Turkey’s third offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northeast Syria, Zoueida, her husband and their children fled Ras Al-Ain.

“We heard the Turkish soldiers were going to bomb out homes so we took to the roads,” she said. Humanitarian officials in Iraqi Kurdistan say almost 1,000 Syrian Kurds have entered since the launch of the Turkish operation codenamed “Peace Spring.”

Under Turkish airstrikes and artillery fire, Kurdish fighters have defended Ras Al-Ain with a network of tunnels, berms and trenches, losing ground but holding off Turkey and its proxies for the past week.

Syrian Kurdish authorities on Thursday called for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians from the border town encircled by Ankara’s forces.

The appeal came after Turkey’s Syrian proxies hit a health facility in the town, trapping patients and staff inside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Zoueida said she was at the home of friends elsewhere in Syrian Kurdistan when she heard that regime troops were entering what has turned into a semi-autonomous zone since the 2011 outbreak of Syria’s civil war.

“We’ve seen a lot of blood on the streets. Children were having to sleep out on the streets, there was no water and nothing to eat,” she said.

AFP civilians and more have been displaced due to Turkey’s weekold offensive, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory said. A child stares from a minibus transporting Syrians at the Bardarash camp, near the Kurdish city of Dohuk, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.