Vans, but also tractors, loaded with foam mattresses, carpets, basins and kitchen utensils, carrying women and children, some bundled up in blankets: the population exodus in the province of Idleb in Syria, noted by the AFP correspondent on Monday January 27, is massive.
After weeks of deadly bombing, the forces of Bashar al-Assad's regime are poised to take the strategic city of Maaret al-Noomane in the province of Idleb. The city is located on the M5 motorway which connects the capital Damascus to the metropolis of Aleppo, a route that the regime seeks to secure.
More than 350,000 people displaced by the regime's offensive
Almost besieged by government forces, the city has almost emptied of its population. Sitting in the front of a vehicle, Oum Hussein is in tears. "I don't know where we are going to go, where we are going to live, there is no refuge for us", deplores this mother of seven children from the region of Jabal al-Zawia, near Maaret al-Noomane, under the cover of the night. "I left my loved ones but also my daughter, I don't know what will become of her, she is about to give birth," she says. "There weren't enough cars to get them out."
Since the beginning of December, 358,000 people have been displaced by the violence, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the UN. "The situation is deteriorating day by day, more civilians are dying," deplores an International Rescue Committee (IRC) official, Misty Buswell, interviewed by AFP. "This latest escalation will only worsen the humanitarian disaster that is already taking place in Idleb," she warned.
The province of Idleb in the viewfinder
Supported by the air force of its Russian ally, the regime continues to hammer its determination to reconquer Idleb, a great bastion dominated by jihadists and which also welcomes weakened rebels.
The great Idleb region and adjacent territories in the neighboring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia are dominated by the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham, the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) assured that the regime's forces were "in the vicinity" of Maaret al-Noomane. "The city is almost surrounded," said the director of this NGO, Rami Abdel Rahmane.
Two civilians were killed in Russian raids on the village of Chnan, north of Maaret al-Noomane, according to the Observatory, the regime and its ally continuing their air strikes in the area. In recent days, government forces have conquered approximately 18 villages and localities north and east of Maaret al-Noomane, according to the OSDH. The troops also increase the pressure on the western flank of this city, according to the Observatory and an AFP correspondent.
In recent months, the regime has carried out several military operations which have allowed it to nibble on swathes of territory in Idleb and its surroundings, despite the truces which remained in the end dead letter. If it succeeded in reconquering this vast region, the regime would have regained control of almost the entire country, except the areas controlled by the Kurds or by Turkish forces and Syrian auxiliaries in the north.
With AFP
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