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38,500 flee hostilities in Syria’s Idlib in two weeks: UN
GENEVA, Sept 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Violence in northwest Syria has
displaced more than 38,500 people in less than two weeks amid increasing
hostilities and a looming regime assault on the opposition-held Idlib
province, the UN said Thursday.
The UN, which has warned a full-fledged assault on Idlib could create the
century’s “worst humanitarian catastrophe”, has created a plan to help up to
900,000 people who could flee the onslaught.
And an exodus has already begun.
During the first 12 days of September, “available information indicates
that a sharp increase in hostilities and fears of further escalation has led
to the displacement of over 38,500 people,” the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA)
said.
That marks a hike of nearly 10,000 people from the figure provided by the
UN on Monday.
However, OCHA said that 4,500 of those who had fled since September 1 had
“spontaneously returned” over the past three days amid a relative decrease in
hostilities in western and southern rural parts of Idlib province.
It said most of those who left their homes had fled towards the north,
towards the Turkish border.
Others chose to flee into agricultural lands near their original
communities “with the hope that they will be able to quickly return …
should the hostilities stop,” OCHA said.
The province and adjacent rural areas form the largest piece of territory
still held by Syria’s beleaguered rebels, worn down by a succession of
government victories in recent months.
President Bashar al-Assad has now set his sights on Idlib, and his forces
and their Russian allies have since the beginning of the month stepped up
bombardment of the densely populated province.
Some three million people live in the zone now, about half of them already
displaced by the brutal seven-year war and others heavily dependent on
humanitarian aid to survive.
A major military operation in Idlib is expected to pose a humanitarian
nightmare because there is no nearby opposition territory left in Syria where
people could be evacuated.
“We are in no way ready for the worst-case scenario,” the UN’s Regional
Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Panos Moumtzis, told reporters
in Geneva.
“Should we see three million of the people headed to the Turkish border,
this is a scenario that by far outweighs the capacity of all the humanitarian
organisations put together,” he said.
“At the moment as humanitarians while we hope for the best, we are
preparing for the worst.”
Of the UN response plan to help up to 900,000 people who could flee the
hostilities in Idlib, Moumtzis said: “We hope it won’t happen. We hope it
will not be needed.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/1853 hrs