Traumatised civilians flee IS ‘capital’

BEIRUT: Scores of civilians are fleeing Syria’s Raqqa traumatised, with families torn apart and conditions worsening as the battle to oust the Islamic State (IS) intensifies, a senior UN official said on Thursday.

The number of people escaping has risen rapidly in recent weeks, Sajjad Malik, the UN refugee agency’s representative in Syria, said.

“They’re coming out really weak, thirsty and frightened,” he said, after visiting several camps for the displaced in northeast Syria.

Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias is fighting to seize the IS’s base in Syria.

With air strikes and special forces from the US-led coalition, the SDF pushed into Raqqa in June after advancing on the city for months.

Fighting since late last year has displaced more than 240,000 people in the wider Raqqa province, most of them only in the last few weeks, Mr Malik said.

“They’re traumatised by what they’ve seen,” he said.

“Dead bodies all over the place. In some more destroyed neighbourhoods, bodies still in that heat rotting on the street and in debris.”

Recent advances along the Euphrates river, which borders the city from the south, have allowed the Kurdish-led SDF to completely encircle the IS inside Raqqa.

“Some places do not even have enough drinking water anymore,” Mr Malik said, after residents lost access to the river.

An estimated 30,000-50,000 people remain trapped in the city with the IS holding people there against their will, Mr Malik said.

Witnesses say the militants have shot at those trying to escape.

“Those who are coming out now are paying enormous amounts of money, basically their lifelong savings, to smugglers to get them out,” he said. “They’ve left family members behind.”

Many do not have enough money or could not bring elderly parents and sick relatives with them.

“There is a conflict going on to eradicate Isis but in the process we should try to protect [civilians],” Mr Malik said, stressing the importance of getting them safe passage out.

Even after the “military endgame” in Raqqa, he added, people will have to grapple with a humanitarian crisis and severe trauma. Many children now fear the sound of aircraft.

“This will take much longer ... to bring them back to some kind of normalcy,” Mr Malik said.

Ahead of the attack on the city, the UN human rights office raised concerns about increasing reports of civilian deaths.

In a May report, it said there had been “massive civilian casualties ... and serious infrastructure destruction”.

IS militants still control swaths of Syria’s eastern desert bordering Iraq and most of Deir al-Zor province, which would be the group’s last major foothold in Syria after its likely loss of Raqqa.