{"id":59739,"date":"2021-05-23T18:11:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T18:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/?p=59739"},"modified":"2021-05-23T18:11:19","modified_gmt":"2021-05-23T18:11:19","slug":"idps-from-syrias-sere-kaniye-deprived-of-simplest-necessities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/59739\/","title":{"rendered":"IDPs from Syria\u2019s Sere Kaniye deprived of simplest necessities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – <\/strong>In a school room that lacks all the basic necessities of living in the town of Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah, northeast Syria, the displaced Raghib al-Shilo lives with his nine children in the heat of the summer without electricity or cooling equipment, amid the lack of relief aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the invasion of Turkish forces and their affiliated armed groups in the areas of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad in late 2019, schools in the Tel Tamr area in the Hasakah countryside turned into shelters for thousands of displaced people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although most of the displaced families later moved to two camps in Hasakah, and a third of them settled in the countryside of Raqqa or the cities and towns of northeast Syria, some of the displaced who were unable to find another shelter stayed in these centers amid difficult conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harsh living conditions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Raghib al-Shilo, who was displaced from the countryside of Sere Kaniye, said that dozens of people in shelters live in difficult conditions, and that he is unable to buy bread for his children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He criticized the lack of aid provided by relief organizations amid the lack of job opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musa\u2019ab Bin Omair school, near the Khabur River, is home to 40 displaced families who fled their homes after the war reached the outskirts of their villages in the countryside of Sere Kaniye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to official statistics from the Organizations Affairs Committee, after the Turkish attacks, Tel Tamr received about three thousand families, including about 30,000 people, most of them children and women, before most of them moved to other camps and cities in northeast Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man, who suffers from diabetes, added, “we used to receive relief aid before, but for months no party has helped us, and the camps no longer receive us due to their being at capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Shilo, who stands next to an iron bed on which his sick mother sleeps, painfully remembers what happened to him and his family after the invasion reached his village of al-Arisha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says: “Our village was completely emptied of its residents, and according to information we got from our relatives in the neighboring villages, the opposition groups completely destroyed the village after it was booby-trapped, and they stole 800 bags of barley belonging to me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After their takeover of dozens of villages, the Turkish-backed opposition groups destroyed homes and robbed others under the pretext that their owners dealt with the Autonomous Administration or the SDF, according to local and international human rights reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer without power<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Al-Shilo said that electricity has been cut off in the area for two months, and that everyone is sleeping on the ground outside during the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the temperature in Hasakah and its countryside has reached more than 42 degrees Celsius, and the government’s General Directorate of Meteorology says that the temperature is between seven and ten degrees above its average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it is very hot in the afternoon, children play in the corridors of the school, and some women prepare food while waiting for their husbands to return from work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey’s seizure of the Euphrates water has led to power cuts to large areas in northeast Syria, in addition to other problems, most notably damage to agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when residents of cities and towns have only limited hours of electricity from private generators known as “amperes,\u201d these displaced people are unable to secure any alternative source of electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humanitarian organizations hung awareness-raising brochures on coronavirus on the school’s walls, while all parts of the school suffer from the spread of dirt, and its residents complain of sewage overflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elderly people and children<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like many who are sheltering in the school, 91-year-old Maryam al-Talab walks through the school corridor, leaning on a crutch made of pipe segments, and says that she does not know where she is going after her family was split up after their displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lacks a room to accommodate her due to the overcrowding of the school, and she is currently living with one of her granddaughters after her son was killed while performing compulsory service for the Syrian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two of her daughters got married, she could not find anyone to take care of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told North Press, “I sleep with the neighbors and sometimes in the schoolyard,” even though she and her granddaughter suffer from an eye disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that she obtains free medication from the town’s hospital and buys the rest of the items from pharmacies, relying on the help of some residents of the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She states that she has not drunk cold water or sat in front of a fan this summer due to the lack of electricity and cooling equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost no support<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Salma Muhammad, an IDP from the Sere Kaniye countryside, complains of the almost complete lack of aid by civil society organizations for more than six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told North Press that the support is almost non-existent and the aid is limited to providing bread and tanks of household gas, while even drinking and washing water has been cut off by UNICEF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kurdish Red Crescent now provides a tank of only 5 barrels of water per day to about 45 families residing in the school, and it also provides food baskets once every two months after the suspension of support by relief organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muhammad, a mother of three, said that they are unable to manage their livelihoods, not even to buy the most basic necessities of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many families refused to leave the school despite the Autonomous Administration\u2019s previous decision, which came in order to ensure the progress of the educational process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most civil society organizations, especially local partners of international organizations, cut aid to the displaced at the request of the Organizational Affairs Board and Social Affairs and Labor Board, with the aim of forcing the displaced to go to pre-determined shelters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2020, co-chair of the Hasakah Council Abdulghani Osso said that they began transferring the displaced from the schools to the camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29-year-old Sere Kaniye IDP Leila Abdulrahman came to live in the schools of Hasakah and faced difficulties at the beginning, adding, \u201cDespite all of this, we are satisfied with our current situation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe were provided with aid at first, but then it was cut. Power has been cut off for four months,\u201d said Abdurrahman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman spent several days with her children suffering from asthma in the camp,\u201d but we didn\u2019t like it there because of the dust, so we came back to the school again to find out that aid was cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahin Ahmed, an official in the committee tasked with transporting the displaced from the shelters to the camp, said that the Sere Kaniye IDPs were hosted in 80 schools in Hasakah and its countryside before the preparation of the Washokani and Sere Kaniye camps began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahmed pointed out that they had emptied 33 out of 80 schools, leaving 47 schools still with the displaced as a result of the Sere Kaniye camp reaching its full capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official criticized the work of civil society organizations and humanitarian organizations, which, as she described, “do not address the suffering and needs of the population, in addition to the Syrian regime’s failure to recognize the camps of Sere Kaniye and Washokani.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pointed out that the relief support provided to the displaced “is very little, and increases the suffering of the population in light of the limited capabilities of the Autonomous Administration and its inability to provide more support to the displaced from their areas.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting by Dilsoz Youssef\/Jindar Abdulqader<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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