ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Idlib, the last rebel held enclave in Syria, faces “the worst humanitarian catastrophe” of the century, the United Nations warned on Monday. More than 30,000 civilians have already been displaced since fresh bombing raids began last week.
“There needs to be ways of dealing with this problem that doesn’t turn the next few months in Idlib into the worst humanitarian catastrophe with the biggest loss of life in the 21st century,” the UN’s new humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, told reporters in Geneva, AFP reports.
On Saturday, the “most violent” Russian air strikes in weeks hit southern and southeastern areas of Idlib, leaving four civilians dead according to the UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“We are extremely alarmed at the situation, because of the number of the people and the vulnerability of the people,” Lowcock said, warning that “civilians are severely at risk”.
The population of Idlib has swelled over the years of conflict with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Syrians.
There are currently around three million people in the province, according to UN estimates.
“As of September 9, 30,542 people have been displaced from northwest Syria, moving to different areas across Idlib,” David Swanson, spokesman for the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), told Reuters.
Damascus, which is backed by its allies Iran and Russia, is preparing a major offensive on Idlib and other areas of northwest Syria to bring them under regime control.
The offensive could lead to a humanitarian nightmare as there are no more opposition areas left in Syria for people to flee to and borders are mostly closed to refugees.
UN humanitarian chief Lowcock said the UN and other aid agencies already have measures in place provide immediate assistance to fleeing civilians.
“We are very actively preparing for the possibility that civilians move in huge numbers in multiple directions,” he said.
Lowcock said the UN is doing “very detailed planning” to reach up to 800,000 displaced civilians and expects around 100,000 people to flee into government controlled areas with the remaining 700,000 initially fleeing attacks to other areas of Idlib.
The UN’s World Food Program has already prepared stocks of food for some 850,000 displaced people, he said.
“It is a very major preoccupation for us,” Lowcock added.
Having retaken the suburbs of Damascus from the armed opposition, and regained control over Daraa – the cradle of the 2011 uprising that morphed into Syria’s seven-year civil war – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has now set his sights on the country’s northern provinces.
Idlib, which straddles the Turkish border, is mostly under the control of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a battle-hardened umbrella group of jihadists led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate. Pockets of the province remain under ISIS control.
Complicating matters, the Turkish armed forces also have several outposts in Idlib in support of rebel groups. Moves by Assad risk pitting Russian-backed Syrian forces against Turkish soldiers.
Assad’s forces have already begun massing in the areas of Idlib already under its control and on its southern and eastern flanks.
It is unclear when the offensive will formally begin and what impact the fall of Idlib could have on Turkish-controlled Afrin and the northern provinces controlled by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met in Tehran on Friday to discuss the conflict in Syria, but failed to agree on a strategy to protect Idlib’s civilians.
