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Syria
Families from Sari Kani and Afrin are housed in Tishreen school in Qamishli city ob January 24, 2026. Photo: Fazel Hawramy
QAMISHLI, Syria - Since she was kicked out of her home in Sari Kani (Ras Al Ayn) by Turkish backed Syrian armed groups in October 2019, Azizi Haji Muslim has been running from one camp to another trying to feed her four children.
On Friday no food was delivered by the NGOs to the school where the 45 year old mother has taken refuge in the city of Qamishli for the past seven days. Her four children had left over from Thursday when the family received some rice and bean stew.
When Rudaw visited her and 32 other families in Tishreen school in Arbavi neighbourhood of Qamishli in northeast Syria on Saturday no food has been delivered by midday.
The family had been at Talaia camp in Hasakah informally known as Sari Kani camp because it housed the displaced people of Sari Kani including Arabs and Kurds for several years.
When the Syrian Arab army started attacking the Kurdish Neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiya in Aleppo on January 7, the IDPs became frightened. "The camp was encircled by Arab villages and we became scared," Aziza said. "We left the camp and came to Qamishli as it is safer and we were housed in this school."
Life in Sari Kani on the Turkish border was good and peaceful for her family, Aziza remembered with a smile on her face. "But look what I have been reduced too," she said pointing to the rice and bean stew that she had kept from Thursday to feed her children.
Two children are hiding under the blankets from the cold even thought a heater burns kerosene by the door to keep the family warm.
On top of food shortage, the families in this school complained about lack of drinking water, and desperate need of mattresses because the tile floor is painfully cold.
"There is no food, no milk and no nappies for children," Sabah Mohammad, 43, and mother of four children said standing next to Aziza. "I have not had a shower for a week."
Various NGOs including Barzani Charity Foundation have delivered aid for several days but the demand is so high that many schools housing the IDPs fall through the gaps.
"Several NGOs have come here and noted down what we need but are still to receive anything," Sabah Mohammad said.
Outside the school a truck delivers a number of pillows. "A local paid for these pillows," Hayat Abbas the principal of the school who is now administering the IDPs said. "We have sent all the pupils home because we need the school for the IDPs."
The school is one of dozens of facilities housing around 134,000 IDPs across the Kurdish region. Several families Rudaw interviewed in Tishreen school said that they were tired of war and hoped to return to their hometown one day but they were unsure if the future.
"I don't want to be photographed," Aziza said. "We live next to Arabs and life is too unpredictable in this region to expose ourselves to cameras."
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