Syrian refugee exodus largest since war began
An estimated 3.6million Syrian civilians are crammed against the closed Turkish frontier in an area the size of Somerset, in what the UN said it believed was the largest number of people displaced in a single period since the war began in 2011. Some 700,000 people have been displaced from Idlib, Syria’s last rebel bastion, in the past 10 weeks.
When the overcrowded tent cities reached breaking point, the displaced sought refuge in the mosques. When the mosques filled up, they built flimsy shelters in the olive groves.
Then when winter came and the trees lost their leaves, they had little to shield them from the biting cold other than their coats and blankets.
Now the civilians of Idlib, Syria’s last rebel bastion, have nowhere left to seek shelter. “There is no house of concrete or of mud or even a chicken coop that is not inhabited,” Maad al-khalaf said. “People are in dire need of any shelter. Even a tent sometimes is not available.”
Mr Khalaf, 41, once a proud landowner, has been forced to share a tent with his wife and children and another family on abandoned farmland near the Turkish border. The Khalafs are among more than one million people who have fled their homes since the Russian-backed Syrian offensive began last April. Some 700,000 of those have been displaced in the last 10 weeks, after a short-lived ceasefire collapsed in December.
The UN’S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that it believed it was the largest number of people displaced in a single period since the war began in 2011. There are now an estimated 3.6million civilians crammed up against the closed Turkish frontier in an area the size of Somerset.
“Syria has the world’s largest concentration of displaced people and it urgently needs a cessation of hostilities so as not to turn it into a graveyard,” warned Jens Laerke from OCHA.
Defending their last patch of territory are rebel militias made up of several thousand fighters.
The Syrian regime and its Russian allies have pummelled the province with airstrikes, hitting more than 60 hospitals and other civilian structures in a deliberate attempt to send populations fleeing. But people have nowhere to turn. The border with Turkey was shut in response to the 2015 migrant crisis. Syria’s neighbour is already hosting some 3.5 million Syrian refugees and is refusing to accept any more.
Western diplomats privately express concern that, should Turkey open its border once again, a new wave of refugees would head Europe’s way.
However, the humanitarian situation in Idlib has become so dire it has become impossible to ignore.
The UK and others this month called an emergency summit at the United Nations Security Council. The UN has largely been hamstrung to act in Syria as Moscow, the main backer of Bashar al-assad, the president, wields veto power.
The recent exodus has been so quick and so huge that aid agencies have struggled to provide even the basics. “The numbers are enormous – it’s impossible to keep up with them,” Mercy Corps, an NGO working in Syria, warned this week. “It’s the same scene, hour after hour; of trucks, loaded down with whatever the people in them could grab; with whole families crammed in the back, with no end in sight.”
Another 280,000 people could flee from urban centres if fighting continues, including from the city of Idlib itself, which is packed with people who have escaped clashes elsewhere.
“The bombing is constant, day and night,” said Mercy Corps. “People don’t want to run. They’ve had to move so many times, but they have no choice but to run and keep running.
“The worst part is that we saw this coming. The UN, the international community, the governments – they all knew that we were here and that this was going to happen. And yet nothing has been done.”
Hasan Akoush, 29, left his home in the town of Atarib on Monday, when the fighting came within several miles of his home. Last night was terrifying,” he told The Daily Telegraph by phone.
“My daughters (aged one and three) were crying and shaking for a few hours due to the barrage of bombs and rockets landing in the city.”
They have no heating and are forced to sleep on the floor of his parents’ home. Temperatures in the region have dropped below zero, which has proved deadly for those seeking shelter outside in tents. In its nine long years of civil war, Syria has seen several waves of mass displacements.
In total, more than half the pre-war population of 21million has been displaced – nearly six million outside of Syria and as many again internally. Offensives on Homs, Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta in the suburbs of Damascus, Deraa and Suweida in the south, sent people fleeing. Those who stayed agreed to so-called reconciliation deals with the Syrian government. Most of those who could not, or did not want to, went to Idlib.
More than half of those living in Idlib have been displaced from former rebel-held cities that fell to Assad, some forcibly and others fled fighting or arrest. A recent poll conducted the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity with 150 people who have fled the latest onslaught on Idlib found that 90 per cent would not consider returning to Assad-held areas or entering “reconciliation” agreements.
Journalists, rescue workers and activists in Idlib have even pleaded for help from The Telegraph for help to reach Turkey. They fear they will face persecution, torture, or worse should the government retake the whole province. “There are many like me, I know,” said one local journalist who has spoken out against the regime in a number of Western publications. “But please, I will face a horrible fate if Assad comes. May God protect me if I cannot get out before he does.”
‘My daughters (aged one and three) were crying and shaking for a few hours due to the barrage of bombs and rockets landing in the city’