Displaced huddle in a basement as winter grips Syria

AL-BAB, Syria: After washing up her family’s dishes over a plastic basin, 11-year- old Cedra sits on the floor of the dank basement in Syria to tackle her day’s studies.

A dark staircase leads from a street in the town of Al-Bab to the gloomy space the young girl, her blind father and some 40 other families have the misfortune of calling home.

“There’s a single room which we use as a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom,” said Cedra.

She scribbled in her notepad, while crouched against a wall of bare cinder blocks and under a line of laundry trying to dry in the humid cellar.

The residents of this underground camp were displaced by the Syrian war, sometimes several times, mostly from the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Cedra’s family fled the city of Deir Ezzor in 2012, in the early stages of Syria’s conflict.

They took refuge in Raqa, further west, but the city soon became the Syrian capital of the Islamic State group’s selfproclaimed ‘caliphate’.

The subsequent bombardment of Raqa, which was almost completely levelled, killed her mother and brother.

The girl and her father fled once more and eventually found their way to Al- Bab, a rebelcontrolled area near the border with Turkey.

Cedra does not go school because she needs to help her blind father, but one of the other adults living in the basement has organised classes for her and a few other children. The war has set her back years in her education.

A resident of Al- Bab made his basement available to the displaced in mid-2017. The space is now divided in 42 tiny ‘studios’, one for each family. Their food and other basic needs are provided for by local charities.

“The initial idea was to have a temporary shelter for people while they look for a housing solution,” said Abu Abdel Rahman, also displaced from Deir Ezzor. — AFP