Aid groups scramble as crisis unfolds

Humanitarian groups in northeastern Syria are scrambling to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of people as rapidly shifting battle lines make it increasingly difficult to reach them.

Nearly all foreign aid workers have been evacuated because of security concerns, and there are fears that local staff could face reprisals, either at the hands of Turkish-led forces pushing in from the north or Syrian troops fanning out across territory held by the embattled Kurds.

The frontlines are being rapidly redrawn as more than 160,000 people flee the fighting, including many who were displaced by earlier battles in Syria’s eight-year civil war.

The offensive has created a new refugee crisis in a region where some 1.6 million people already rely on humanitarian aid.

Before the offensive, a camp in the northern town of Ein Eissa held an estimated 12,000 displaced people, including around 1000 wives and widows of Isis (Islamic State) fighters and their children. But rioting broke out as Turkish-led forces closed in over the weekend, leading to the escape of hundreds of Isis supporters.

Sonia Khush, the Syria response director at Save the Children, which was operating in the camp, now says it is “nearly empty”, with most of the residents having fled.

So far, most of the displacement has been within northern Syria, but hundreds of refugees have crossed into Iraq in the past week, mostly through unofficial border points.

Doctors Without Borders, which operates in war zones around the globe and is known by its French acronym MSF, said on Wednesday it had decided to suspend most of its activities and evacuate all its international staff from northeastern Syria.

The International Rescue Committee also said it has suspended its health operations in the northeast because of “hostilities and uncertainty”.