ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Zaynab Othman, 57, an IDP from Afrin, is worried about how to manage her family’s living affairs. She tries to buy the most basic and necessary needs due to the high prices of products and her inability to keep up with the changing prices.
Like the rest of the IDPs and locals who live in the town of Tel Rifaat in the northern countryside of Aleppo, Zaynab suffers from difficult living conditions due to the government siege on the area.
Since the displacement of the residents of Afrin in 2018, the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian government forces has repeatedly imposed suffocating sieges on the area. When imposed, its checkpoints near the city of Manbij prevent the entry of fuel, food supplies, medicine, and other necessities from Hasakah to the northern countryside of Aleppo.
The tragedy of those people never ends, as since the beginning of November, the government forces have prevented the arrival of these products to the IDPs which has exacerbated their already deteriorated living conditions amid a harsh winter.
The northern countryside of Aleppo, locally known as Shahba region, houses IDPs of the Kurdish city of Afrin which was occupied in 2018 by Turkey following a military operation dubbed “Olive Branch” to push away the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of protecting “Turkey’s national security”.
The operation caused the displacement of about 300.000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin who have been taking shelter in 42 villages and five camps in the Shahba region since then.
The region has been militarily protected by Russian and Syrian government forces since 2018.
Othman said that one of her children works in one of the Autonomous Administration’s institutions and earns 360.000 Syrian pounds (SYP), which only covers their basic needs.
“We have become calculating what we eat to save a little money. Where we have ended up!” she added crying.
The siege has caused an increase in the prices of all materials, as a liter of heating fuel is now sold for 8.000 SYP ($1.3), and the cost of a household gas cylinder has reached 85.000 SYP ($13.5), while a liter of gasoline is sold at 14.000 SYP (more than $2).
To cope with the winter, IDPs and residents of the area use dry tree branches and twigs, nylon bags, cardboard, old shoes, and anything flammable to warm themselves and cook their food outside the tents.
Those who have the financial capacity resort to buying firewood. The price of which has reached 800 SYP per kilogram.
As for food products, the prices have increased by 20 percent to 40 percent since the start of the siege, according to Hussein Jawish, a wholesaler in the area.
Jawish noted the difficulties they face when trying to bring the materials saying, “It is like a trip for treasure search because of the prices’ manipulation.”
On Dec.18, the Afrin Social Association in Qamishli city warned of a humanitarian catastrophe against Afrin IDPs if the government’s siege continued, and appealed to civil society and human rights organizations to intervene and lift the siege on the region.
“After all the bombardment and displacement we went through, they want us to starve,” said Amina Muhammad, 67, a displaced woman from Afrin who lives in Tel Rifaat.
“The siege deprived us of several materials. There are some kinds of fruit and foodstuffs that we have not eaten for a long time.”