TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – Despite the poor living conditions in which the family of Fatima Ali, an IDP from Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and lives in a school that has been turned into a shelter in the town of Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah, northeastern Syria, is going though, the family refuses to return to its village in the presence of the Turkish-backed armed Syrian opposition factions there.
Ali’s family is one of tens of thousands of families who fled their homes during the Turkish invasion, accompanied by the Turkish-backed armed opposition factions on the areas of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad in October 2019.
Two years after Turkey took control of a 120-km border area in northeastern Syria, the displaced Syrians refuse to return to their homes under the Turkish control, for fear of their fate, given the brutal violations committed by the armed factions against the population.
“There is no safety there. I have daughters, I cannot return for fear of being harmed by the armed men,” the mother of seven, six daughters and a son, said.
Ali added that even if she was able to return, the life conditions in her village were worse when compared to the difficulty of living in this school.
The committee of the Sere Kaniye IDPs calls on the international community to provide guarantees that the displaced can return to their homes.
On October 9, Mahmoud Jamil the official spokesman of the Sere Kaniye IDPs committee called on the international community to secure a safe and honorable return “in order to protect us from abuses and violations.”
“This cannot be fulfilled unless Turkish occupier exits our cities and through offering economic support to the occupied areas. Without obtaining these guarantees, we cannot return,” Jamil pointed out.
Difficult living condition
Less than 15% of Sere Kaniye residents returned to their houses after Turkey and Turkish-backed armed factions had took control over the area, according to a recent report released by Synergy Association for the Victims of the Turkish Invasion of Northeast Syria (local organization that is active in the area).
The forty-year-old woman, who hails from the village of al-Manajir in the countryside of Sere Kaniye, mourns the future of her twenty-year-old daughter, after she dropped out of school to support them after her husband became bedridden.
Stranded after being displaced from their homes, about 3,000 families headed to the Tel Tamr area, with a population of about 30,000 people, most of whom were children and women, who were sheltered in villages and schools that were taken as shelter centers, according to a statistic by the Office of Organizations Affairs in Tel Tamr.
According to the Educational Complex in Tal Tamr, the IDPs reside in 15 schools in the area.
11 people share one room
In the next room in the same corridor, Sarah Muhammad, a displaced person from village of Arisha in the countryside of Sere Kaniye, has been living for two years with ten members of her family in one room devoid of most of the necessities of living.
Like thousands of displaced people in the countryside of Hasakah, Muhammad refuses to return to her home under the control of the Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed armed factions.
“The armed factions occupied our village, we lost our lands, houses, doors and windows, there is nothing encourage us to return for and live there. There is no roof to protect us, no windows or even a door, How can I return to a land occupied by an enemy? We cannot return at all.”
Muhammad lives in difficult conditions at school, and perhaps the most difficult thing for her family is that her family of 11 shares one room, which serves as the kitchen, bathroom and living room at the same time.
While some of the children were playing in the school yard, she said with a sigh, covering her face with a scarf “We do not set up a diesel heater, we live in one room , our situation is bad, as we bath, cook, live and sleep in the same room. Isn’t it a disaster?”