Syria: Airstrikes or Minefields—the Deadly Choice Facing Raqqa’s Residents

AMSTERDAM/SYRIA, JUNE 9, 2017—Intensified fighting for control of the Syrian city of Raqqa has forced civilians to either stay in their homes and villages under heavy bombardment, or attempt to leave the city and risk their lives crossing active frontlines and minefields, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

“Parents have to make an impossible decision,” said MSF emergency coordinator Puk Leenders. “Either they stay in Raqqa, subjecting their children to increased violence and airstrikes, or they take them over the frontline, knowing they will need to cross minefields and may be caught in crossfire.”

Escaping Raqqa—known as the stronghold of the Islamic State (IS)—is fraught with difficulties. “People are punished if they try to flee, and generally manage to leave only by paying huge bribes,” said Leenders.

Many of those leaving Raqqa are heading north in search of safety towards Ain Issa, Manbij, Mahmoudli and Tal Abyad, all within a 75 mile radius of the northern Syrian city. Some, however, have headed for ‘the Berm’—the border area between southern Syria and Jordan, almost 435 miles away, where humanitarian assistance is almost non-existent.

“The road to Ain Issa was littered with mines,” said a 65-year-old man from Raqqa. “It took us two months to be able to leave Raqqa, but finally I left with five other families. On the way, I was injured in an airstrike, while two of the children stepped on landmines as we fled in the middle of the night, injuring them both, one of them seriously.”

Many of the people fleeing Raqqa have been repeatedly displaced by six years of war, and are originally from places like Palmyra and Deir Hafer. Often their health is already poor as a result of barely functioning health services, a lack of humanitarian aid, ongoing war and closed borders, preventing them from leaving Syria. Already vulnerable, their journey out of Raqqa takes a heavy toll on their health, further exacerbated by poor living conditions in often makeshift camps.

Some who have left Raqqa in recent weeks are staying in transit camps; others are camped out under the shade of trees on the outskirts of towns such as Manbij, Tal Abyad and Tabqa.

“Driving through these areas, you see tents and people haphazardly scattered all over the place, with the bare minimum for survival,” said Leenders. “Most people that we see are farmers, therefore most of them either leave with their livelihood, like sheep and some belongings, or they leave with nothing aside from the clothes they are wearing,” Leenders added.

MSF operates clinics in camps for displaced people and works in a number of hospitals in the area in and around Raqqa Governorate, including Manbij, Tal Abyad and Kobane/Ayn Al Arab. Teams provide emergency medical care to people fleeing Raqqa and elsewhere, as well as vaccinations for children to protect them against preventable diseases and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. Over the past week, MSF teams have vaccinated 1,070 children under the age of five, many of whom had never been vaccinated.

“Most of the people we see are suffering from acute watery diarrhea, respiratory infections and psychological complaints due to the loss of loved ones, exposure to traumatic events, and the fear of being killed,” said Leenders.

MSF is also setting up medical stabilization units close to the frontlines to improve the chances of survival for people injured in fighting, and to refer them to MSF-supported hospitals where trauma care and surgery are available.

MSF calls on all warring parties and their allies to ensure that civilians in Raqqa are protected, and that those who flee the city are able to reach safer areas without endangering their lives. MSF calls on the countries surrounding Syria to facilitate humanitarian aid to enter Syria, and calls for humanitarian demining activities to be carried out in the north of the country. MSF also urges international aid organizations to step up the provision of humanitarian assistance to people fleeing Raqqa.