Idlib – North-Press Agency
Displaced people in the al-Qataa al-Gharbi camps surrounding Salqin city, northwestern Idlib, on the Syrian-Turkish border, complained of the interruption of food aid for months, in addition to poor services as the summer arrived.
There are about 30 camps in al-Qataa al-Gharbi that received support from dozens of organizations, most notably Violet, Syria Relief, Human Apple and the Khairat Association, all of which are in Turkey.
The work of these organizations gradually stopped with the end of the contracts that were never renewed. They justified this by the absence of a new support plan, according to the Department of Displaced in Idlib.
The director of one of the camps in al-Qataa al-Gharbi, who identified himself as Abu Atiya, told North-Press that the displaced people are suffering from difficult conditions due to the lack of aid and organizational support to hundreds of families there, and the injustice of the "Salvation Government" that administers these camps, which paid no attention to the complaints of the people.
Bashar al-Ahmad, a media activist and resident of Samedoon camp within al-Qataa al-Gharbi, told North Press that the displaced people in the western countryside of Idlib are totally forgotten, whether by humanitarian and relief organizations or the local councils or institutions responsible for the region.
He added, "The disaster of these displaced people is evident especially in winter, when the winds start to uproot their tents or they are flooded and washed away by torrents; this happened last year.”
Most of Idlib’s camps suffer from a shortage of food aid and the lack of bread, schools, services as sanitation networks, and roads linking the camps to each other or to the main roads there.
Al-Ahmed mentioned the names of some camps that have not received any humanitarian aid for nine months, including Samedoon, Aedoon, Arahma, Safsafa, Qademoon, Abu Talha, al-Takhi, Azraq, Madinah, and al-Rahman."
Umm Muhammad, a displaced woman living in al-Madinah al-Munawwarah camp, said that they did not receive any assistance despite the start of the month of Ramadan (a fasting month for Muslims). “We beg to get a loaf of bread.” She indicated that they did not get any food baskets, fuel, or bread, and they had to eat bread with tea due to hunger.
While expressing her dissatisfaction with the poor living conditions in the camp, an elderly displaced woman said that they are begging for bread and food from displaced people in the neighboring camps, and that the camp residents live in a miserable state due to the lack of aid.
According to the report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued on the 27th of March, these camps need to increase the allocations of water, sanitation, and hygiene services, with more than 64,000 people lacking the appropriate means of waste disposal, 32,000 lacking sanitation services, and more than 108,000 lacking toiletries.
According to the statistics of the Response Coordinators team in Idlib, about 1,277 camps are in northwestern Syria, inhabited by about 1,041,000 displaced people, among which 366 random camps house about 184,000 people.