HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – The 43-year-old Ahmad Ali al-Eido, an IDP who fled the Turkish shelling of the northern countryside of Hasakah, northeast Syria, is trying to realize events that end him with his family up in a camp inside a tent lacks the least aspects of life.
“Those who can live in a rented house will not accept to live here,” he said.
Families that fled villages of Tel Tamr and Abu Rasin (Zargan) towns are forced to reside in the camp because their houses were destroyed due to the ongoing shelling, he told North Press.
For two weeks, families of the aforementioned areas have been flocking to Sere Kaniye Camp, near the eastern entrance of Hasakah, where authorities established an annex to receive the IDPs.
The Turkish escalation with the support of the Turkish-backed armed factions in late 2021, claimed lives of two members of al-Eido’s family, wounded others, and destroyed their house from which they fled leaving everything behind.
On December 2021, al-Eido fled with his family of five their village Rabi’at in the countryside of Abu Rasin.
Over one week, the intensive Turkish shelling of Abu Rasin claimed lives of six people, evacuated nine villages of their residents, and damaged two mosques in the town, the municipality building and 24 houses, according to local sources.
Bloody day
The penultimate Tuesday of 2021 was a rainy day that spread optimism among farmers who had suffered and got tired due to drought and war.
Al-Eido described the barrage of shells when returning from his land to the house as to “open the gate of hell”.
In order to stay safe, al-Eido’s father demanded that he bring his children to the family’s house instead of moving between the two houses in order to see his parents.
After they stayed in one house, two shells fall in front of the house, al-Eido felt heat of shrapnel penetrate his thighs and saw his wife and children wounded lying next to him.
On December 2021, dozens of artillery and missile shells fell on the countryside of Abu Rasin reporting casualties and wounded.
The Turkish forces and the Turkish-backed armed factions stationed in the villages of Bab al-Kheir and Dawudiyah targeted the villages of Tel Jum’a, Tel Karabit and Umm al-Keif in the countryside of Tel Tamr with shells.
Meanwhile, the residents of the village fled in order to save their lives, and al-Eido assisted his children and when he returned to see the rest of his family he met his father on the route to tell him that his mother and sister were killed in the shelling.
The man could not tolerate the tragic forcing him to cry and shout seeing shreds of his mother and then hurried up to search for the body of his sister that was flung in a valley due to the bombardment.
A car of rescue members of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) arrived in the site in order to transfer the bodies.
Empty tent
Al-Eido, his family and other wounded were transferred to Derbasiyah Hospital and then they were transferred to a hospital in Qamishli city, northeast Syria, in order to treat his 11-year-old daughter who were critically wounded in the abdomen.
Although the daughter is still at the hospital, the rest of the family has resorted to Sere Kaniye Camp, where an annex was established and tents hastily were set up.
The camp includes 2,225 families numbering 12,036 persons in addition to dozens of families that have resorted to the camp to live in the recently established section with 76 tents.
The tents lack the least aspects of life especially heating tools, bathrooms, toilets, and covers.
The administration of the camp distributes meals to the newly arrivals.
Al-Eido said they have not obtained mattresses, covers or heaters while children were crying the entire night due to the cold weather.
The newly established section has not been prepared yet and has only one mobile toilet and a number of reservoirs for water.
However, al-Eido is forced to transfer his 78-year-old father about a kilometer away from their section to the old sections in the camp in order to get it in the nearest toilet or arrive in the tent of their relatives.