Humanitarian aid efforts are underway for tens of thousands of Syrians displaced by a surge in fighting between rebels and the government in northwest Syria.
Many of the internally displaced persons, or IDPs, come from the Aleppo, Afrin and Shahba regions and are fleeing to Raqqa and Tabqa in the north and east of Syria.
Resources are stretched thin, though, according to an official from the Kurdish Red Crescent in the region and an official from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, or AANES.
The IDPs, who are mostly Kurds, are at risk not only from the fighting and airstrikes but also reported death threats. Syrian opposition groups launched their campaign hoping to take over Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, which had been under the control of the Syrian army.
A member of the Kurdish Red Crescent Refugee Council in Tabqa, Ahmed Ibrahim, says that, so far more than 100,000 IDPs have taken very dangerous routes to reach Raqqa and Tabqa.
"Due to the threat of massacre by jihadists, the fleeing of civilians to Raqqa and Tabqa continues. According to our initial data, the number of people who have arrived has exceeded 100,000, most of whom are women and children," he told VOA.
Ibrahim stressed that his group is expecting the number of fleeing civilians to increase in the coming days. He explained that his organization, Red Crescent, is mobilizing all of its resources to meet the most urgent and vital needs of IDPs.
"We have mobilized our health teams to provide basic health services even with very limited resources, because people are arriving after a very tough journey, in freezing weather, under harsh and unsafe conditions, " he said.
Ibrahim stated that most of the IDPs have been placed in local schools by AANES, while Kurdish Red Crescent has set up more than 150 tents.
He said his organization provides food, clean water, winter clothes and blankets for the IDPs. But the combination of limited resources, freezing temperatures and high numbers of arrivals means current assistance is far below what is needed.
"Most of them remain outside or in cars for 48 to 72 hours, including children and the elderly. There is no room for them, until a shelter has been set up or we can arrange for a family to host them," Ibrahim said.
Ibrahim urges international humanitarian aid organizations to help meet the immediate needs of the IDPs.
Several armed insurgency groups are involved in the latest offensive in northwest Syria. Leading the effort is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, formerly a branch of the al-Nusra Front Syria, until 2017, when it was designated as a terrorist organization globally and changed its name.
The Syrian National Army, or SNA, is the second main group in the offensive, an umbrella organization of several Turkish-backed groups.
The Rojava Information Center, or RIC, is an independent, volunteer-staffed organization based in northeast Syria. It issued a report Wednesday announcing that the Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods remain under siege by HTS, facing imminent assault.
More than 100,000 civilians live in these areas, which are primarily Kurdish.
Sheikhmous Ahmad, co-chair of the Office of IDPs and Refugees Affairs of the AANES, said Wednesday that his group had received more than 30,000 IDP families, totaling more than 120,000 people, from the town Shahba region and northern Aleppo.
“Autonomous Administration has suspended education in Raqqa and Tabqa to provide temporary shelters to host our people who sought safe refuge. Also, two reception centers have been set up, in addition to the tent camps, and gymnasium,” Ahmad told VOA.
He highlighted that all institutions of AANES are working with all of their resources to meet the IDPs’ vital needs, such as health services, beds, clean water, stoves and gas, but he said their current resources are not sufficient.
“The international community should pay more attention to gravity of the situation,” he said.
The ANNES official criticized the lack of adequate support from international aid organizations and issued a reminder about an "urgent humanitarian appeal" that his administration announced on Tuesday.
Quoting from that appeal, he said, “Providing emergency aid is crucial to saving lives and alleviating human suffering. So, we urge on all relevant parties to urgently support our humanitarian work on the ground.”
David Carden, the U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, visited Idlib this week to assess the situation.
"More than 115,000 people have now been newly displaced across Idlib and northern Aleppo," he told Agence France-Presse afterward.
The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria Chairman Paulo Pinheiro urged all parties involved in the war to uphold the protection of civilians, human rights and the Geneva Conventions.
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen also announced that he would soon go to the region to speak with senior officials and seek a de-escalation.
This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.
