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SYRIA-CONFLICT-RAQA
Outside Raqa, displaced Syrians brace for winter in tents
AIN ISSA, Syria, Oct 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – As dust whips up around them,
families from Syria’s Raqa ready their tents for the coming winter, still
homeless a year after the Islamic State group was expelled from their city.
Tens of thousands fled their homes in and around Raqa in the months that
led up to US-backed forces ousting the jihadists from the northern city in
October 2017.
One year on, most returned, but thousands of others from destroyed homes
remain at a camp for the displaced in Ain Issa, around 50 kilometres (30
miles) north of the ravaged city.
Families still reside in flimsy white tents, often with brightly coloured
laundry slung out to dry on their guy ropes.
“We have no means to rebuild our home. If we did, we wouldn’t have stayed
here,” said Batul Sbaka, sitting inside a tent with two children on her lap.
The 32-year-old mother said she returned to see her home in Raqa after she
had heard the jihadists had been evicted.
“When I saw my house, I screamed. We used to have two rooms and a kitchen.
It was all destroyed,” she said.
“At least here we have bread and water — and a tent for shelter,” said
Sbaka, a black scarf dotted with pink flowers wrapped around her face.
Around the tent where she lives, the camp’s inhabitants have been preparing
as best they can for the coming winter months and life under canvas.
– ‘Nowhere to go’ –
Armed with a shovel, a woman was digging a small trench around a tent in a
bid to prevent expected rain water from trickling in.
A young man fixed the family tent back into position after it had been hit
by a dust storm.
Around 80 percent of Raqa city lies in ruins today, Amnesty International
says, much of it due to air strikes by the US-led coalition.
Outside another tent, Mashhur al-Maajun was sitting in a wheelchair, while
his wife rested on a blanket on the ground.
“We lost our home. We have nowhere to go,” said the 73-year-old double
amputee, dressed in a long grey robe.
“The camp is the only shelter we have,” said the old man, who had also lost
his vision because of diabetes.
Her hair wrapped in a headscarf, his wife agreed.
“We don’t want to live in this camp, but how are we supposed to live in our
destroyed home?” she asked.
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced
millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-
government protests.
Making up the daily routine of life at the Ain Issa camp, women examined
vegetables on sale at stalls, while others lined up to fill up plastic jerry
cans with water.
On the edge of the camp, children played on swings.
Young boys and girls attended class in a tent turned classroom, while
others gathered excitedly to receive pens and notebooks.
– ‘Too risky’ –
Some 150,000 people have returned to Raqa since IS was defeated last year,
the United Nations estimates.
But camp manager Jalal al-Ayaf says some 4,000 people from Raqa still live
in Ain Issa, alongside thousands more displaced from eastern Syria, and he is
worried about the coming months.
“The NGOs don’t give us anything any more — no food baskets, no sanitation
products,” he said.
“Some of the tents are worn out.”
Inside the camp, residents complain that food deliveries are few and far
between, with month-long delays between distributions, including for rice and
cooking oil.
But despite such complaints, some say returning to Raqa is too risky.
IS jihadists sowed landmines around the city as they retreated, a legacy
that still maims and kills residents to this day.
And there are near daily attacks on checkpoints and military vehicles,
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
Mustafa Abud, 31, said there was no way he would take his three children
back to a city still so unsafe.
“We thought everything would be alright after the city was liberated,” said
the young man in a black shirt.
“But it’s no longer the Raqa we know,” said Abud, his short dark hair
slicked back with gel.
“We just want to live in safety. And right now, the camp is safer.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/0852 HRS