Winter hardship worsens as Syria’s offensive displaces Rojava civilians

QAMISHLI, Syria - For the third time in less than a decade, Kurdish families displaced by conflict have been displaced once again, forced to seek shelter in school classrooms in Qamishli amid harsh weather conditions, as attacks by the Syrian Arab Army and its affiliated groups leave the displaced with nowhere else to go.

Her heart heavy with grief, a 60-year-old woman from Afrin now lives with her family of six inside a small classroom, where they have been staying for seven days.

Her son was killed four years ago, yet repeated displacement continues to define her life.

“I send my greetings to Afrin. Do you know what destruction has befallen Afrin? We came from Afrin to Shahba [as displaced people]. From Shahba, we came to Raqqa. We have been in great distress,” Meisa, a displaced woman from Afrin, told Rudaw on Friday.

“What [more] does the enemy want from us? We are Kurds; what do you want from the Kurds? You want to massacre the Kurds. You killed the little ones; you killed the adults. You killed children and youth - everyone. What do you want from us? For three days now, our children have been sleeping on the ground. We have nothing; we have no money. We have nothing...”

The scale of suffering is visible throughout the school building now turned into a shelter. According to Rudaw correspondent Dilnya Rahman, each floor tells a separate story of loss and uprooting.

“This school has three floors. Truly, on every floor you pass, there is a story - the stories of people from different cities and towns who were displaced from their homes, their ancestral lands, and from places that should have been a warm shelter for them. They are now forced to live in a place that lacks even the most basic necessities,” Rahman said.

Among the displaced is Ahmed Mohammed, whose life was permanently altered by war. In 2017, a bombardment damaged his optic nerves, leaving him blind. Since then, displacement has followed him from one place to another.

“I am a displaced person from Afrin. In 2017, we came to Shahba. We lived there in tents for seven years. Of course, life there was full of hardship - the heat and the cold. From there, we were displaced again to Raqqa. In Raqqa, they attacked us again... We were on the back of a tractor; two little girls died, they were our neighbors' children. The weather was cold, and being on the tractor was very difficult... One of the children was two years old, and the other was six months old,” Mohammed said.

Local authorities say most schools in Qamishli have been allocated to displaced families. In a particular school, 63 families - most of them from Afrin - are currently sheltering.

Severe shortages of drinking water have forced residents to melt snow for daily use, while many also lack warm clothing and sufficient food as winter conditions persist.

Following the recent attacks of the Damascus forces on the Kurdish-ruled areas in northeast Syria (Rojava) over the past two weeks, more than 500 Kurdish families displaced from areas west of the Euphrates River have arrived in Rojava, according to the Kurdish Red Crescent.

Hadiya Abdullah, co-chair of the organization, told Rudaw on Sunday that “so far, 540 families from west of the Euphrates have reached Rojava.”

Abdullah said that 400 families have arrived in Qamishli city, while 100 families headed toward al-Malikiyah (Derik) and 40 others went to Amuda in Hasaka province, adding that “a number of other families are also on their way.”

Dilnya Rahman contributed to this report from Qamishli, Syria. 

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