Syrians mask their fear
Idlib – Hudhayfa al-Shahad straps a colourful paper cup filled with cotton and charcoal to a child’s face and tightened a plastic bag around his head: an improvised gas mask if chemicals once again fall on Syria’s Idlib.
Civilians in Syria’s last major stronghold of active opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule are preparing food and digging shelters ahead of an expected army offensive.
They are also putting their faith in neighbouring Turkey’s diplomacy to spare them from military action, which could become a humanitarian disaster.
“We are preparing what little we can.
“Small primitive masks we can place on our children’s mouths in case we are hit with chemicals,” 20-year-old Shahad said from his village south of Idlib city, where he shares a house with his pregnant wife, three children and around 15 other people.
His brother, 35-year-old construction worker Ahmed Abdulkarim al-Shahad, shows off the cavernous space under a cool, vine-covered courtyard the family has been digging and sheltering in from bombardment since 2012.
“Military preparations as we have seen are in full swing. We as civilians have started preparing the caves,” he said, showing glass bottles of pickled vegetables shelved on the damp cave walls.
Around three million people live in the rebel stronghold in northwest Syria, which comprises most of Idlib province and adjacent small parts of Latakia, Hama and Aleppo.
About half of them fled fighting or were transferred there by the government under surrender deals from other parts of Syria as Assad has steadily taken back territory from rebels.
In April last year, a government warplane dropped sarin on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, killing more than 80 civilians, the UN commission of inquiry has said. It also said Syrian forces have used chemical weapons, including chlorine, more than two dozen times during the war.
Russia, Assad’s ally, resumed air strikes against insurgents in Idlib on Tuesday following weeks of bombardment and shelling by pro-Syrian government forces in an apparent prelude to a full-scale offensive against the last major rebel enclave. – Reuters