- The Media Line - https://themedialine.org -

No Escape from Aleppo’s Violence

More devastation for those trying to avoid the bombings and carnage

KILIS, Turkey – “We came to escape the bombings, but instead we found something else,” said a shell-shocked Taia, just hours after she and her two youngest children were badly injured in a car bomb that hit the Bab Al-Salam transit camp right on the Turkish/Syrian border on Thursday.

Taia finally gave up on life under the ‘barrel bombs’ in Aleppo just ten days ago – barrels filled with explosives and dropped from helicopters and airplanes onto the civilian population by government forces. The Assad regime has been using the internationally outlawed munitions since before Christmas. After the Geneva II talks concluded, the bombing intensified. And with the barrel bombs falling, the Bal Al-Salam camp, just inside Syria and Kilis — a small town that sits right on the Turkish side of the Syrian border — has been groaning under the weight of a surge in refugees from Aleppo.

One of the unlucky ones, unable to afford to get across the border into Kilis, Taia had arrived at the camp for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) on the Syrian side of the border.

On Thursday she was taking her two youngest, aged 2 and 5 years, to the bathroom in the mosque across the road from the camp when a car bomb hit. “I was taking the two kids to the toilet,” she said. “I didn't feel anything, just a ball of fire. I woke up in the ambulance to Turkey.”

The deadly blast was felt kilometres away. Shortly after four o’clock in the afternoon, a mass of people began arriving at the main hospital in Kilis, just a couple of kilometres up the road from the border. “About 300 people arrived all at once,” said Mehmet Yilmez, 28, the doctor on duty at the emergency room that day. “There was no space to even start an examination. Relatives of the patients were everywhere, screaming.”

Life remains a struggle even for those who have made it out of the city alive; and since last week’s blast it has gotten to be a lot worse. As yet, nobody has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but locals all pin the blame on 'da3sh' – a derogatory term for the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) which controls the nearest town, Azaz, and are fighting for control of the border.  

The explosives-laden car exploded at the border crossing outside the camp immediately adjacent to the checkpoint opposite where children play in the street. Medical clinics and the offices where NGOs services are managed from are located nearby.

Aleppo is now a ghost-town. “There's nobody left,” said Muhammed, 25, a former resident of the city. He'd been back to visit his friends and collect some things from his home before returning to Turkey. Last night he received word that his house had been destroyed in a barrel bombing. His family, fortunately, had already fled.

The barrel bombs themselves are a lethal mix of thousands of pounds of TNT and metal and other debris with a large blast radius. They don't always detonate, but when they do they wreak extensive havoc to both the buildings – shops and houses – and civilians within their paths.

Kilis — a town where the pre-war population of 80,000 people has nearly doubled with the new arrivals from across the border – has been struggling to provide for the influx of refugees. A large and exceptionally well run refugee camp sits on the Turkish side of the border. 14,000 residents live in 'containers' — small pre-fab houses with two rooms. The streets are paved and there's a school, clinic, adult education center and other facilities. But the camp is full – as is 'Kilis 2' — which was built to house an earlier influx last summer.

Just before Christmas the barrel bombing began in earnest. An initial wave of people escaped the bombs and the cold. But the rain of terror from the skies continued and intensified this month. With peace in short supply, so, too, are supplies.  Food, medicines and electricity don't come easy in Aleppo. So the residents are leaving in large numbers.

Leaving is a risk. Residents must decide between regime bombs and their chances against ISIS. There's no way to reach the border without going through a check-point manned by the ISIS. The Islamist group so brutal that even Al-Qa’ida have disowned them. ISIS pulled out of Aleppo as a result of recent inter-rebel fighting.

In the city, troops loyal to the Syrian regime troops have retaken the industrial area which was previously fortified by ISIS, and are closing in on Sheikh Najar. If the Islamists are successful, they'll cut the only supply line into the rebel-held side of the city, creating the potential for a Homs-like siege.

The United Nations Security Council adoption of a resolution which demands humanitarian access to besieged areas could be difficult to police with both ISIS and the Syrian government.

If the refugees reach Kilis, life becomes no easier. The bus station — a chaotic hub for Syrians seeking an onward journey at the best of times — has become home to many. As dawn breaks the blanket piles dotted around the building begin to move and whole families emerge from beneath. The cold nights give way to warmer days and the lawns around the station are dotted with families sitting and waiting, planning their next move or meal — whichever comes first.

In the International Blue Crescent (IBC) clinic, Taia and her two injured children are sharing a single bed in a room intended to hold six patients. There are at least eighteen people in the room. In the two beds across from the family are 11-year-old boys who have lost their legs in the recent bombing campaign. One of the boys, Ahmad, was hit by a barrel bomb 15 days ago. His mother said, “He was playing on the street and the bomb landed at his feet and he lost them.”

An informal reception area in the rear of the town — adjacent to a park where thousands of refugees set up an informal camp last summer – is bordered by humanitarian organizations offering services. There's a food stop for the hungry and bathrooms for those who need to wash. As a one-off, a truck distributes mattresses and blankets to the new arrivals who line-up ten deep for the much needed supplies. The park is full of Syrians taking tea and chatting, relaxing outside of the cramped accommodations they have secured in every spare room and half-built building to be found in the town.

Small charities are responding. Nadia Alawa, the founder of NuDay Syria is fundraising franticly.  “NuDay Syria is helping a warehouse facility function as housing for over 300 mothers and children with a separate space for males to sleep as well during the night. She said, “Right now blankets and mattresses are being secured but we still need funds to have enough for everyone and for baby milk.” Her local activists are working day and night to provide for new arrivals to the town. Their job just got harder.

The increasing pressures are pushing the resources of this town to the limits. The night of the car bombing every spare bed in town was taken. Small, grotty hotels were full. Signs on the doors in Turkish and Arabic declare, “We have no rooms tonight.”

Fearing for their safety across the border, hundreds more on top of hundreds before them have entered the town to seek refuge and there's no more room at the inn.