North Syria exodus as families flee assault on Daesh

MANBIJ, Syria — More than 65,000 people have been forced to flee fighting in northern Syria, ravaged in recent weeks by dual offensives on the Daesh terror group, the United Nations said Sunday.

The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) said that tens of thousands of people have left their homes in northern Aleppo province, particularly around the former extremist stronghold of Al Bab.

“This includes nearly 40,000 people from Al Bab city and nearby Taduf town, as well as 26,000 people from communities to the east of Al Bab,” OCHA said. 

Turkey-backed rebels seized Al Bab from Daesh on February 23 after several months of fighting.

OCHA said the nearly 40,000 people displaced from the town fled north to areas controlled by other rebel forces, and that the “high contamination” of unexploded bombs and booby traps set by retreating extremists was complicating efforts to return.

And since February 25, OCHA said, another 26,000 people fled violence further east, where Syrian government forces supported by Russian air power have also been waging a fierce offensive against Daesh.

Many of those fleeing the violence sought refuge in areas around Manbij, a town controlled by the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF). 

An AFP correspondent in Manbij said that long queues of families were still forming at checkpoints leading to the town on Sunday. 

Pickup trucks full of children and women wearing full black veils were being searched individually by SDF personnel before being allowed to enter.

‘Fled with nothing’ 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Saturday that 30,000 people had been displaced by the government’s offensive on Daesh extremists.

The Russian-backed push is aimed at Daesh-held Khafsah, the main station pumping water into Aleppo.

Residents of Syria’s second city have been without mains water for 48 days after the extremists cut the supply. Regime forces retook full control of the city last year.

On Sunday, Russian and regime warplanes bombarded Daesh positions in support of Syrian troops, which had advanced to around 14 kilometres  from Khafsah, the Observatory said. 

Since war broke out in Syria in March 2011, more than half of its population has been forced to flee their homes.

Aleppo province hosts tens of thousands of displaced Syrians, many in camps near the Turkish border.

“We left our homes with nothing: no fuel, no bread. Our children are starving,” said Jumana, a 25-year-old Syrian woman who fled the clashes with her two children. 

“Daesh was shelling us, the airplanes were hitting us. Our children were terrified. We were barely able to save ourselves,” she told AFP on the outskirts of a village around 18 kilometres from Manbij.

‘Very difficult circumstances’ 

Ibrahim Al Quftan, co-chair of Manbij’s civil administration, told AFP on Saturday that fleeing families were “suffering very difficult circumstances”.

 “The numbers of displaced people here are still rising because of the clashes between the Syrian regime and Daesh,” Quftan said.

Syria’s multi-front conflict is approaching its seventh year and has killed more than 310,000 people, defying international efforts to stem the violence. 

Another round of UN-brokered peace talks ended Friday in Geneva. The negotiations between government and rebel delegations limped along for several days but stumbled on the issue of counter-terrorism.

Russia began its air war in support of President Bashar Assad’s forces in September 2015, and its help has been instrumental in recapturing large areas from Daesh and rebels, including Aleppo and the famed desert city of Palmyra, which fell from extremist hands last week. 

Rebel backer Turkey sent its own troops into Syria in August to fight both Daesh and Kurdish forces, some of which Ankara considers “terrorists”.