TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – Sixty-year-old Amina al-Arna looks forlornly at her son’s damaged house in the middle of the village of al-Dardara in the countryside of Tel Tamr, northeast Syria. Her son recently fled to an IDP camp in Hasakah after a shell landed a few meters from his house.
Luckily for the family, no one was wounded in the bombing, but the outer wall of their house was riddled with holes from shrapnel.
Al-Arna holds back her tears as she wanders near the house in which she remains alone with her elderly husband, after her son and his family fled along with most of the village’s residents towards other areas to escape the frequent shelling.
Like dozens of villages north of Hasakah up to the town of Ain Issa in the countryside of Raqqa, the village of al-Dardara found itself on the front lines with the arrival of the Turkish forces, accompanied by the Turkish-backed armed opposition factions, to its outskirts about two years ago.
Turkish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups have been stationed at military points in the Syrian territories they control in the countryside of Hasakah and Raqqa, since their attacks in late 2019 on the areas of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad.
Remaining villagers fear that Turkish forces will continue to target the village, despite the ceasefire agreement signed by Ankara with Moscow after its attack on Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad in late 2019.
Repeated attacks
On Wednesday evening, Turkish artillery bombed six villages in the countryside of the towns of Tel Tamr and Abu Rasin, wounding an elderly woman and two members of the government forces in Umm al-Keif village, north of Tel Tamr, in addition to causing material damage to private property.
The two members of the government forces succumbed to their injuries on Thursday.
The Turkish bombardment also targeted another point of the government forces located in the village of al-Abush, north of Tel Tamr, resulting in material damage only.
On Tuesday, four people lost their lives and a girl and her mother were wounded by shrapnel in the bombing of the Turkish forces and the opposition factions loyal to them on the family’s house in the countryside of Ain Issa.
A day before, a woman and her child were injured after a Turkish bombardment hit them while they were displaced from their village, Ain al-Abed, east of Tel Tamr.
Under the scorching sun, al-Arna tells North Press about the bombing of her village in the morning: “We were sitting at home when they fired the shell. It fell here, then it hit the house. When the shelling stopped for a while in the afternoon, we went out into the wilderness and stayed there with our children, elders, and families.”
“Our lives are difficult and our nerves are shot. We now are living in fear and terror. This village has been shelled for more than ten days. They bombard us every day; if they don’t target us in the evening they will in the morning or afternoon,” she sighed.
Displacement
Al-Arna added that only a small number of residents remained in the village, most of them elderly, while the rest were displaced, leaving their homes to the Turkish bombardment.
According to sources in the Syriac Military Council (a Syriac military force affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces) deployed on the front lines in the countryside of Tel Tamr, “the Turkish forces and their affiliated opposition factions targeted the village of al-Dardara more than 10 times in the last two weeks alone, and the bombing caused great damage to the residents’ property.”
In the midst of a cautious calm in the village, people frequent the only grocery store left in the village.
In front of his grocery store, the young Khader al-Naser points out that, “Our village’s situation is very bad.”
The young man, who refused to leave his village, adds that his work had stopped during the past days, due to the displacement of most of the villages due to the bombardment.
“Our village’s situation is very bad. Every two or three days they shell our village. The villagers flee and leave the village,” he added.
Al-Dardara village is three kilometers away from the Russian base located in al-Mabaker station, north of the town, but the residents say that the Russians do not react to the Turkish attacks on them.
Al-Naser and other residents call on the concerned forces present in the area to stop targeting the village, and put an end to the Turkish violations so that they can return to their normal lives.