TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – Ida al-Sadoun, 40, fills her water bottle with drinking water every morning, wraps it with a wet burlap sack to cool down, and places it in the window of the classroom where she stays with her family. They live in a school on the outskirts of the town of Tel Tamr in northern Hasakah in northeast Syria.
Al-Sadoun was displaced with her husband and three children from the village of al-Qabr al-Kabir, eight km north of the town of Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah, after shelling intensified by the Turkish forces and Turkish-backed opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA). They took shelter in Sayf al-Dawla school in Tel Tamr.
A room for everything
Al-Sadoun told North Press, “We are five people living in one room in this school. We do all our chores here, such as cooking, bathing, sleeping, eating, and doing laundry. Every summer that passes by, our situation worsens even more. We can barely breath inside this room.”
The school is completely deprived of electricity and has no means of cooling the water, especially as summer is here. Al-Sadoun noted that even the water for drinking and doing laundry “We buy every three days at an expensive price exceeding 20,000 Syrian Pounds (SYP, equals about $ 2,27).
She complains about receiving no help from the municipality regarding water. “They argue that all water tankers are on alert to extinguish fires that might occur in agricultural lands, and they cannot provide water for shelters now,” she said.
Sold fans to feed children
Muhammad Ali al-Zaher, 46, IDP from the village of Tel al-Ward in the countryside of the town of Zirgan (Abu Rasin), north of Hasakah, like all IDPs in the school, sold the fan he received when he first came there “to provide food for our children.”
Al-Zaher, who lives with his family of eight in one room in the school, complains about the absence of any aid to deal with the “blazing” summer. He told North Press, “We demanded many boards and organizations to provide the school with electricity or air conditioners, fans, or drinking water for free, but it was useless.”
Al-Zaher lives with his 80-year-old father, who cannot move and stays in bed. He is getting worse every day due to the high temperature in the room and the absence of a cooling tool, he noted.
Running from lines of fire
Hakoma al-Zaher, an IDP from the village of Tel al-Ward who lives with six members of her family in one room in the same school, suffers because there are no means to cool the room or the drinking water.
“We turn on the stove that works on gasoline inside the room we sit and sleep in. When it is noon, we move around and outside the room looking for a cold breeze of air to breathe,” she told North Press.
Al-Zaher complains about the lack of humanitarian aid, saying, “We ran from lines of fire to come and sit in a greater fire here.”
Tel Tamr region contains over 10,000 IDPs in 30 shelters spread among 22 schools and some villages along the Khabur River between Tel Tamr and Hasakah.
Muhammad Saeed Sheikhmus Ahmad, co-chair of Tel Tamr Region Council, affiliated with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), told North Press, “We know very well that these IDPs are lacking the fundamental livelihoods, which drinking water and cooling tools come at the top in this hot summer.”
“Our capabilities to secure all the needs of these IDPs are very weak. We always need the support of international and local organizations operating in the region,” he added.
He also noted, “The work of organizations operating in this region is very little and does not cover the huge number of IDPs in shelters in Tel Tamr and its countryside.”
Ahmad demands international organizations “to take greater responsibility towards these IDPs.” He also called on the AANES to provide more support despite their limited and little capabilities.