HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – Under a tent in Sere Kaniye IDP camp in the east of Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria, a little girl plays with her sister while their mother looks closely at them.
The 30-year-old, Amkin Shukri, gave birth to her youngest daughter in Sere Kaniye IDP camp, east of Hasakah, away from her city Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain).
This came only three months after she displaced from her village Mrekis in the countryside of Sere Kaniye.
Shukri, a mother of four, said, “My daughter does not know anything about her village.”
The eldest daughter interrupted her mother saying, “The Free [Syrian] Army occupied our village and they will kill us if we return.”
The 30-year-old woman tries to tell her youngest daughter that they have a home in the village through pictures and conversations.
However, due to her young age, the daughter is not well aware of the struggles of life that the rest of her family lived and the suffering of displacement they went through.
On October 9, 2019, the Turkish forces and their affiliated SNA factions launched a military operation against the city of Tel Abyad in the north of Raqqa and Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in the north of Hasakah.
The operation, named “Peace Spring”, led to the occupation of the two cities and their countryside in addition to the displacement of more than 300.000 of the original inhabitants.
Many people headed to camps that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) established. Others headed to shelter centers at schools.
Some others were distributed in the cities and towns of northeastern Syria.
Shukri’s daughters constantly ask her mother, “When will we return home?”
The mother occasionally replies, “We will return to the village as soon as possible. We will not stay here any longer.”
Despite inaccurate statistics, estimates indicate the birth of at least 1.000 children during the past three years in the IDP camps, according to officials.
Under tents covered in dust, the mothers keep showing picture of their homes to their children, telling them that they have a better shelter than these tents.
The 32-year-old, Aziza Misto, an IDP woman from Sere Kaniye, said that her children have seen nothing but tents and mud.
“When we go to Hasakah city, my children ask: ‘Why do their homes look like this, while ours are tents?”, she said, holding her two-year-old child girl.
Like other women, Misto deliberately shows pictures of her city to her children in order not to forget the past which they did not see.
IDP families from Tel Abyad and Sere Kaniye have suffered from difficult living conditions and education.
The 34-year-old, Sana’ Khalif, who was displaced from her village of Umm al-Khair in the countryside of Sere Kaniye, gave birth to a baby in Washokani camp in the north of Hasakah.
Khalif indicated that her children always ask, “Is this our home?” telling them that they have a house but they cannot return due to the war.
The women are yearning for return saying, “so that our children can live a good life far from living in the camps.”