Skepticism of cease- fire easing Syrian suffering

KILIS, Turkey — The morning after the United States and Russia agreed on a cease- fire plan in for Syria’s nearly five- yearold war, a dozen Syrians huddled at the border gate here Friday delivered a unanimous verdict. Asked if the bombing would stop, they jerked their heads backward in unison: Syrian for “No way.”

Waiting in a cold drizzle, the men, who had come to Turkey to earn money, were trying to cross the border back into Syria to bring their families out to safety. But they found themselves locked out, just as tens of thousands of civilians fleeing the most intense bombing of the war are locked in.

Forces backing President Bashar Assad continue to push north to the border, helped by Russian air strikes. Western and Arab backers of insurgent groups are declining to increase military support. Turkey refuses to open the border. So the deal hammered out in Munich overnight seemed like just another irrelevant set of words dictated by diplomats in a foreign capital.

“The deals they make there are so isolated and detached from this reality here,” said Faisal, 25, who gave only a first name to protect relatives still inside Syria.

Mohammad Saeed, 27, pointed out that before Munich, there were three rounds of fruitless peace talks in Geneva, the last falling apart before it even began.

“Geneva 1,2, 3, 4, 5,” he said, counting on his fingers. “And there is nothing.”

The men said the proposal would not stop the shooting, the scrambling from refuge to refuge, the fears of the Islamic State infiltrating rebel- held areas or the threat of government forces besieging more cities and town. Least of all did they expect it to stop the fierce Russian bombing campaign that has put so many civilians on the run in recent days.

In Geneva, U. N. officials and diplomats were groping for details Friday about the shape of a “humanitarian task force” the organization was charged with creating to immediately deliver aid inside Syria as part of the Munich agreement.

As they discussed what the task force would do, the U. N. refugee agency reported that more than 80,000 migrants had arrived in Europe by boat over the past six weeks, more than half of them women and children.