{"id":33020,"date":"2019-02-24T01:31:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T01:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33020"},"modified":"2019-02-24T01:31:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T01:31:10","slug":"syrian-democratic-forces-to-save-more-civilians-from-last-daesh-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33020","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Democratic Forces to save more civilians from last Daesh pocket"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nOMA OIL FIELD, Syria:\u00a0\u00a0US-backed fighters said on Saturday they are keeping a corridor open to rescue remaining civilians from Daesh\u2019s last speck of territory in Syria, as the UN appealed for urgent assistance.<\/p>\n

\nThe Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have evacuated nearly 5,000 men, women and children from the militant holdout since Wednesday, bringing the SDF closer to retaking the less than half-a-square kilometer still under Daesh control.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOn our side, the corridor is open and we hope a larger number of civilians will arrive but that depends on Daesh militants and whether they will give civilians a chance to exit,\u201d SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin told AFP at their Al-Omar base.<\/p>\n

\nHe said the SDF had evacuated \u201cmore than 2,000 people, including women, children and men\u201d on Friday, mostly wives and children of Daesh militants.<\/p>\n

\nNearly 2,500 people arrived the same day at a Kurdish-run camp for the displaced further north, compounding dire conditions inside the already crammed settlement, the UN\u2019s humanitarian coordination office OCHA said.<\/p>\n

\nIt warned of the \u201chuge challenges\u201d posed by the influx.<\/p>\n

\nMore than four years after Daesh overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq and declared a \u201ccaliphate,\u201d they have lost all but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.<\/p>\n

\nSome 2,000 people are believed to remain inside Baghouz, according to the SDF.<\/p>\n

\nThe force says it is trying to evacuate remaining civilians through a corridor before pressing on with a battle to crush the militants unless holdout fighters surrender.<\/p>\n

\nThe SDF transferred the fresh batch of evacuees to a screening point outside Baghouz on Friday, to weed out potential militants.<\/p>\n

\nAn AFP corespondent saw hundreds of women and children spread out on the arid desert ground, surrounded by bags, begging for food and water.<\/p>\n

\nA smaller group of men were separated from the women as SDF fighters searched the latest arrivals and checked their identification cards.<\/p>\n

\nAn Iraqi woman in her forties wearing a face veil held in her hand a medical report in English.<\/p>\n

\nShe said the report was written for her by a doctor inside the Baghouz pocket, explaining that she needed treatment for kidney problems.<\/p>\n

\nSyrian woman Khadija Ali Mohammad, the 24-year-old wife of a deceased Daesh militant, said conditions inside the Daesh pocket were deplorable.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe were living in tents and eating bread made from bran. My three sisters and I didn\u2019t have enough money to pay smugglers to get us out before, and our husbands had died in battle\u201d the woman from Aleppo\u2019s countryside in northern Syria told AFP.<\/p>\n

\nShe was disappointed at the collapse of the Daesh proto-state.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cGod had promised us a caliphate and we went to it,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel there will be no victory although they (militants) tell us victory is near.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAround 44,000 people \u2014 mostly civilians \u2014 have streamed out of Daesh\u2019s shrinking territory since early December, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n

\nWhile civilians are trucked north to Kurdish-run camps for the displaced, mainly to Al-Hol, six hours drive from Baghouz, suspected militants are sent to SDF-controlled detention centers.<\/p>\n

\nOCHA said 18 of the 2,500 latest arrivals in Al-Hol, mostly women and children, were in \u201ccritical condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThousands more are expected in coming hours\/days at Al-Hol camp, putting a further strain on basic services,\u201d it tweeted.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis sudden influx presents huge challenges to the response \u2014 additional tents, non-food items, water & sanitation and health supplies are urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe International Rescue Committee on Friday said 69 people, mostly children, had died on the way to Al-Hol, now home to more than 40,000 of the displaced, or shortly after arriving in past weeks.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTwo thirds of the deaths are of babies under one year old,\u201d the relief group said.<\/p>\n

\nThe SDF says it has limited resources to administer camps and has called for support from the international community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OMA OIL FIELD, Syria:\u00a0\u00a0US-backed fighters said on Saturday they are keeping a corridor open to rescue remaining civilians from Daesh\u2019s last speck of territory in Syria, as the UN appealed for urgent assistance. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have evacuated nearly 5,000 men, women and children from the militant holdout since Wednesday, bringing the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}