DERIK, Syria (North Press) – Like thousands of IDPs who fled their villages in the countryside of Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah city, due to the repeated Turkish shelling, Khalouf Darwish, 52, decided to move away as far as possible to escape the sound of Turkish artillery and repeated shelling.
Darwish left his village of Faka in the countryside of Tel Tamr to Newroz camp in the countryside of Derik, far northeast Syria. By doing so he thought he would be spared from the Turkish attacks, but it later became clear that there was no escape from the Turkey’s bombardment.
He fears experiencing another displacement, and he does not know where he will end up this time should Turkey launch its ground operation, which it brandishes from time to time.
“Where will we go if things get worse here? We cannot return to our village because it is subject to repeated [Turkish] bombardment,” Darwish said.
The IDPs and people of northeastern Syria live in constant anxiety owing to the repeated Turkish threats of launching another cross-border incursion. If war blows, there is no doubt that it will deepen their misery, especially since some of them have already experienced the woes of displacement and others lost family members.
Newroz camp shelters about 1.165 families, comprising 6.158 individuals, coming from Tel Tamr, Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad.
On November 20, Turkish forces initiated an violent aerial bombardment and artillery shelling against vital facilities and infrastructure in many areas near the border, extending from the northern countryside of Aleppo in the northwest up to Derik (al-Malikiyah) in the far northeast. Although sporadically, the shelling continues.
Darwish recalls the days when the Turkish shelling intensified; just like the rest of the camp’s residents, he collected all basic belongings and headed towards the camp’s gate to flee in case the bombing intensified.
“I do not know where I would flee to with my family. We live in constant anxiety, fear and terror because of what we have previously experienced,” Darwish added.
Sana Khadir, 27, an IDP from the village of Umm al-Keif in the countryside of Tel Tamr town, wonders where she and her six children would take refuge if Turkey launches a ground operation.
Sitting in front of her tent, Sana says she left her village to Assyrian villages seeking safety for her panicked children after Turkish shelling intensified. She later moved to Newroz camp to keep her children away from shelling and war atmosphere.
As other IDPs, Khadir does not feel stable and safe and always fears being displaced again with ongoing Turkish shelling against the region.
“This tent is everything we have. We are helpless. There is shelling all around us, where can we go,” she added.
Khadir wishes the shelling would stop so she could go back to her house in her village. “I hope, at least, we would not be displaced again. We do not have a place to go to but these camps,” she added after pausing for a few seconds.
At the same camp, Ahmad Hussein, 36, an IDP from Amiriya village in countryside of Sere kaniye and father of four children, fears the prospect of a new war breaking out in the region which, if happened, would displace him to an unknown fate.
After Turkey and its affiliated Syrian opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), seized Sere kaniye in 2019, Hussein moved with his family to the village Seeha at Mount Abdulaziz area in north of Hasakah city. Three months later, he moved to Newroz camp away from the sounds of shelling.
In October 2019, the Turkish military and its affiliated SNA launched a military operation dubbed “Peace Spring” and occupied the border towns of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad, leading to the displacement of about 300.000 of the region’s original inhabitants.
“There are severe outcomes of war. Civilians and children are the most affected. We fear something bad will happen to our children should another war happen,” Hussein added.