Support cut urges females in camp in Syria’s Raqqa to look for jobs
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Pushed by the support break, women in al-Mahmoudli camp in the western countryside of Raqqa, northern Syria, look for other alternatives outside the camp for securing their basics, leaving their children behind, an official in the camp told North Press on Thursday.
Women’s work is another type of suffering, with most of them working on lands for low wages in order to secure their families’ needs, and let alone their duties at home including housework and caring for their children.
Siham al-Oqla, an official at al-Mahmoudli camp, told North Press most of the women in the camp resort to farming work, and that their number has increased recently.
Al-Oqla added the women are compelled to incur hardship of working outside the camp to compensate the lack of provided food and health support due to support break.
She noted that more than 500 women are working outside the camp.
Some male-headed households, who work in breeding livestock, are forced to accompany their wives and children to work with them in order to secure their basics.
The camp, run by Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), stopped receiving support after the latter closed a local association that partnered with the World Food Program (WFP) organization due to violations.
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.
Earlier, Amal al-Issa, co-chair of the Social Affairs and Labor Board in Tabqa, told North Press that the support provided by the United Nations to the al-Mahmoudli camp had been suspended for three months, negatively and significantly affecting the IDPs.
The camp is a house to 1,814 families with 9,184 individuals, mostly from the countryside and cities of Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Deir ez-Zor, which are controlled by the Syrian government forces.
The IDPs in the al-Mahmoudli camp suffer from dire living and humanitarian conditions, according to the administration of the camp.
The official noted that the AANES, under these circumstances, is unable to “give assistance to IDPs and provides very little support.”