QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Ahmad Abdurrahman, 50, sits on a couch under trees shades in his farm near the border gate in the city of Qamishli, northeastern Syria, gazing, anxiously, at the Turkish flag on the other side of the border.
“Fear always controls us. We always work with caution, keeping an eye on the farm and another at the borders because of fear,” Abdurrahman told North Press.
The recent Turkish escalation in northeast Syria has caused concern for farmers who own lands near the border with Turkey, especially after drone’s targeted civilians.
While two of his brothers were busy watering their land planted with summer vegetables, Abdurrahman added that the shelling is delaying and, sometimes, preventing their access to the land due to security concerns.
“We work till dusk and then we get back home, because we cannot work after that.”
Qamishli, like other border cities in northeastern Syria, witnessed this month repeated targeting by Turkish forces through drones and artillery shells, claiming the lives of several civilians and wounding others.
Despite the Turkish escalation, however, Abdurrahman and his four brothers find themselves forced to work in these conditions, especially since their 20 acres of land is their only source of livelihood.
Although the calm situation returned to Qamishli for more than a week, residents and farmers are still anxious regarding renewed targeting.
Within a small field neighboring to Abdurrahman’s land, the sixty-year-old farmer, Muhammad Basatah, works with great caution, while he is also concerned that things will deteriorate and he will lose his source of livelihood.
Basatah, whose beard and hair have gone gray, said, “We have families and children. If we flee, we will lose everything and we will miss the entire season that will bring us back to nothing.”
Like all his peers, Basatah does not venture going to his 20-acre land and to take care of his vegetables during the shelling. This causes damage to his crops.
On August 9, eight civilians were wounded and a girl lost her life in different Turkish drone strikes in Qamishli and Terbe Spiyeh (al-Qahtaniyah), according to North Press field sources.
Days before that, five people lost their lives, including two children, after in a Turkish drone strike on al-Sinaa neighborhood (industrial zone) in Qamishli.
Close to the Syrian-Turkish border, the farmer Munir Juma, 52, is inspecting his field planted with various types of summer vegetables in Qamishli, but the feeling of fear accompanies him from a new Turkish attack that might push him to leave his land and lose his source of living.
While a number of worker women near him are busy collecting vegetables, Juma said that “the Turkish escalation affects us negatively because our land is located near the border.”
This is not the first time that Turkish attacks have made Juma worried, like other farmers on the borderline, as his crops were damaged after Qamishli was targeted by missiles during the attack on Serekaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad at the end of 2019.
While the Turkish border appears 50 meters behind him, the fifty-year-old farmer added, “The more escalation and the longer it lasts, the more severe damages get. My crops are exposed to damage if they are not watered and taken care of. Even when we go to bring the workers to the field, their families tell us that there is an escalation and cannot send them with us fearing their lives.”
Despite dangers, Juma assured that he clung to the land on which his family has lived for nearly 90 years.
“We cannot leave our land and go somewhere else, because it is the essential source of living.”