Many Syrians Have Been Displaced Multiple Times

Civilians are now fleeing again as airstrikes pick up across the country

When Fatima Abu Maghara fled the horrors of Aleppo eight months ago, she never imagined she would return so soon to the same destruction she and her children had tried to escape.

With the violence of the Syrian war extending to nearly every corner of the country, Ms. Abu Maghara recently joined the vast number of Syrians displaced more than once. Her family fled Aleppo for their hometown of Al-Bab in Islamic State-controlled territory. But once there, they like many others discovered that their new location was just as unbearable and they were forced to flee again, returning back to where they came from.

“Nowhere in Syria is safe anymore,” said Ms. Abu Maghara, 29, a mother of four. “Even regime areas are being targeted.”

Before Islamic State launched attacks on Syrian military bases this summer and seized larger swaths of land in neighboring Iraq, there were only scattered airstrikes on Syrian territory the extremist group controlled. These areas became havens of sorts for civilians fleeing the bombardment of much of the rest of the country—even as they had to contend with the militants’ brutal enforcement of their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

But as Islamic State became a global security threat, that relative safety dissipated, marking the latest deterioration in Syria’s security.

Now the Syrian regime and a U.S.-led coalition both target Islamic State-controlled areas—making up about a third of the country. The regime and Islamic State in turn launch strikes on areas held by more moderate opposition rebels. Rebels, meanwhile, launch often inaccurate attacks on government targets in regime territory.

With few safe areas left in Syria, civilians caught in the middle of the multifront conflict can find themselves moving every few months or adapting to new normals that include regular bombardment.

Currently more than 10 million Syrians—about half of the country’s population—have been displaced, and of those three million have fled the country. Syria is now the world’s largest displacement crisis, according to the United Nations.

Ms. Abu Maghara left Aleppo in July after a barrel bomb struck near her building, sending shrapnel and glass tearing through the house and the family cowering for cover. The next day, she, her children and her in-laws got on a minibus and headed back to Al-Bab, her hometown about 25 miles northeast of Aleppo, which has been under Islamic State control for more than a year.

Once she got there, she was unable to leave the house without a male relative escort. Outside she had to abide by a strict dress code on women and her young children risked witnessing the brutal punishments publicly meted out by Islamic State. She said her 12-year-old son didn’t speak or eat for two days after he saw a man being beheaded by the militants in a public square.

If she didn’t leave the house, she told herself, she would be safe. But 10 days after the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Al-Bab was struck 16 times by government planes. More than a month later, the U.S. and its allies in the anti-Islamic State coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria.

For months in Al-Bab, Ms. Abu Maghara and her children braced against the regular attacks until Nov. 11. That night, a barrel bomb dropped by regime aircraft struck their home, destroying all but the room they were sleeping in. In the dark of night, neighbors pulled them out of the rubble.

A day later, the family was back on a minibus to Aleppo.

“The people are moving around. They don’t know where to go,” she said. “There is only safety outside of Syria, but living outside of Syria requires money. Everyone else remains in Syria.”

Between Jan. 1, 2014, and Sept. 22—the day before coalition strikes began on Syria—an average of 99 civilians a month were killed in government strikes on Islamic State areas, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition group that documents daily tallies of casualties.

During the last three months of the year, an average of 146 civilians were killed a month, not including the at least 41 civilians the network says were killed during that period from airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

Since then, the deaths have continued to mount. In January, in the northeastern province of Hasakah, more than 40 civilians, including women and children, were reportedly killed in an Islamic State-controlled area when regime planes bombed a market, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict through activists on the ground.

Though the increased strikes have caused some families to flee anew, it has been a muted exodus compared with the displacement earlier in the conflict because civilians have few viable options left.

In November, many families fled the city of Raqqa—Islamic State’s self-styled capital in Syria—after more than 100 civilians were reported killed when government planes attacked residential and commercial districts. But some eventually returned, fearing that the militants would seize their empty homes.

The IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre has documented how the Syrian regime and Islamic State had mostly “ignored” each other on the battlefield, instead focusing on attacking the more moderate rebels.

Matthew Henman, the London-based manager of the center, said the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was attempting to eliminate the opposition and instigate a showdown between his government and Islamic State that would force the international community to choose between the two.

But in the summer as Islamic State began seizing government military bases, the regime unleashed airstrikes on their areas because “Islamic State was a threat that couldn’t be ignored for much longer,” Mr. Henman said.

These strikes continued after the coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State in Syria in September.

“There might be an element of using the airstrikes as a guide or allowing the coalition airstrikes to go in first to test the waters to see how viable airstrikes would be,” he said.

Since the summer the situation in Al-Bab, like other Islamic State areas, has continued to worsen. On Dec. 25, a regime barrel bomb tore through a market and killed more than 25 people, local residents reported.

Days later, on the night of Dec. 28, two rockets struck a government building turned into an Islamic State jail, leveling the structure and killing dozens, former residents and opposition groups reported. Reports from the ground put the death toll between 80 and 100, most of them civilian prisoners arrested by Islamic State on accusations of violating strict religious rules such as smoking, blasphemy or being late to communal prayers.

Residents and human rights groups blamed the strike on the U.S.-led coalition; pointing to such indicators as the precision, destructiveness and time of the attack. Additionally, residents said the sound of the aircraft was much louder than any they had heard in previous government airstrikes, said Hoda Al Ali, a researcher with the Syrian Network for Human Rights who interviewed several witnesses via Skype.

Officials with both the Combined Joint Task Force and U.S. Central Command have said they are aware of the local reports, but didn’t have anything to confirm them.

Days after the strike, relatives of some of those killed protested against Islamic State, accusing the group of putting their sons in harm’s way knowing the coalition was attacking their buildings, said Bari Abdullatif, a member of the Al-Bab coordination committee who is currently living in Turkey.

Opposition groups fear more civilian casualties as Islamic State militants have withdrawn from many of their known headquarters and set up base in residential areas, making themselves more difficult targets and continuing to endanger those around them.

 

 

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