QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – There are more than 200.000 IDPs in northeast Syria living in nearly 78 camps that are deprived of basic rights amid unbearable living conditions.
Those IDPs are living under tents that do not protect them from neither heat of summer nor breeze of winter. They have been receiving relative aid that could relief them. IDPs are on the hope that one day a solution could be found for the crisis that has been sweeping the country to return to their homes.
The 78 camps are located in five main areas; six in Hasakah, 61 in Raqqa (58 ones are makeshift camps), six in Deir ez-Zor and five in the northern countryside of Aleppo, also known as Shahba region where Afrin IDPs have been residing in since 2018 when they fled their homes following Turkish incursion into the area under the pretext of protecting its national security.
Early in October, Munawar Majed, Head of Camps and Displaced Affairs Office of Raqqa Civil Council of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) told North Press, “The number of camps in Raqqa is 58, and we integrate and organize them in only four camps.”
Majed said the number of families reached 10.000, with 70.000 persons in total.
However, the AANES’s official did not give details to carry out such a scheme. IDPs are expected to have another scenario similar to the one of last winter.
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the SDF defeated ISIS militarily there.
IDPs living in camps endure lack of support from the concerned parties and the humanitarian NGOs. Support has been restricted to the medical aspect only.
These camps are homes for IDPs who fled shelling from areas under the control of the Syrian government forces and repression by the Islamic State Organization (ISIS). Some others were victims to persecution by the Turkish forces and the affiliated armed opposition factions, known as Syrian National Army (SNA) in areas under occupation.
Those people averted death to live in such unbearable conditions with no options available. These camps are breeding ground for diseases and pandemics.
Over the years of the war in Syria, the humanitarian situation in those camps aggravated day after another, owing in part to increased numbers of arrivals and the challenges implied in disregard by the NGOs in delivering aid, added to bad services in education and hygiene arenas.
Being in desert-like and remote areas and lacking basic infrastructure, the IDPs in those camps subject to every evil kinds of illnesses and pandemics such as cholera, leishmaniasis among others.
Amid such terrific a reality, even security is not a sustainable one in a number of camps. Many times, they have been subject to robbery and stealing. The most vulnerable ones are those homes to ISIS families. Hawl Camp in the east of Hasakah is a best example to the latter category.
The Autonomous Administration supervises 16 camps in its areas, with a population of 150,000 people, in addition to dozens of makeshift camps in the countryside of Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Tabqa and Manbij, according to the statistics of the Office of Humanitarian Affairs in the AANES.
According to IDPs and Refugees’ Affairs Office of the AANES, they were able to give refuge to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing war despite the limited resources. Pressure exerted by the Syrian government forces and threats made by the Turkish forces, jails and camps home ISIS families and fighters burden the AANES.
In 2020 Tel Kocher (al-Yaroubiya) border crossing was closed down. It had been the main artery for humanitarian aid into northeast Syria. This has aggravated the situation more. Since then aid has been politicized from the part of the Syrian government which has the upper hand in the case forbidding tens of camps in northeast Syrian from such aid alleging those camps are illegal.
Earlier, Sheikhmous Ahmad, Head of the IDPs and Refugees’ Affairs Office of the AANES said, “The closure of al-Yaroubiya crossing and implementing the decision issued by the UN Security Council burdens more the AANES and operating organizations and allowed Syrian government and Turkey to seize humanitarian aid and prevent it from entry to the region.”
Politicizing the aid issue and making it subject to political agendas, “was a main reason for the delay of support given to the IDPs in the camps,” Ahmad noted at the time.