For Syrian Kurds, camp offers wildly different fates

June 18, 2013 by AFP

Abdulhamid sells ice cream to passersby at Domiz, Iraq’s biggest camp for refugees fleeing violence in Syria, while Sidra reads an Arabic copy of “The Fox and The Crow” in class.

Little but luck appears to have separated the youths’ fates — they both arrived with their families from their war-torn homeland in April.

Sidra now finds herself in a classroom fashioned out of a prefabricated container while Abdulhamid is forced to sell his wares to pay for his father’s medication.

The stark difference in outcomes between the two children illustrates a tightening of resources at the camp, which is relatively well-equipped but struggling under the pressure of rapidly increasing numbers of Syrian Kurds crossing the border into Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region in search of safety from Syria’s civil war.

Sidra, a nine-year-old with brown hair and a slight frame who sits at the front of her class, is among the luckier ones.

“I love to study,” she says, smiling. “I love going to school.”

Her classroom is better than many in Iraq. Sidra has to share the prefabricated container with 28 other students and her teacher, but the vast majority of classes are in her native Kurdish and the room is air conditioned.

The classroom protects them from the harsh climate of Domiz, where winters can be brutally cold and summers punishingly hot, with temperatures rising as high as 37 degrees Celsius.

While Sidra’s teacher Ramadan Kusa acknowledges the children have been badly affected by what they went through in Syria, he notes that in Domiz, “the weather conditions are very tough.”

“At one point, we had a massive flood — they have had to go through a lot,” the Kurd from Syria’s Aleppo city whispers in Arabic.

Nearly 50,000 Syrians have taken refuge at the camp in Domiz, 98 percent of them Kurds.

Overcrowding is pervasive, with the tract of land, allocated by the government of the Iraqi Kurdish region, meant to house just slightly more than half that number of people.

Sidra’s primary school, for example, has 1,400 students, and is among three such schools in Domiz, but according to Sidra’s principal Ahmed Islam, “we still cannot accommodate all the children in the camp.”

In an effort to maximize the number of children attending school, classes have been separated into two batches, with one set going during the morning and a second set in the afternoon.

To make up for all of the time they have lost at school due to the battles between troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups, children at Sidra’s school will also spend the summer in the classroom.

Domiz’s crowded schools are only one example of a lack of space at the camp.

Mohammed Hussein, head of the UN refugee agency’s office at Domiz, freely admits that the living conditions at the camp are “not ideal”, and are likely to get worse before they get better, as some 2,500 refugees arrive every week.

“Since November, the refugees started to suffer from this congestion in the camp because the area that is allocated to them has started to get smaller and smaller,” Hussein says.

“We cannot construct more schools, which are really needed, or shelters, and the facilities that come with them, like sanitation units and showers.”

Hussein says camp officials are fearful that overcrowding is getting unbearable, and are now “preparing for an outbreak of communicable diseases, especially cholera.”

“The risk is very high.”

He said that officials “cannot cover 100 percent of refugees’ needs. We try to provide the minimum — food, education, health — but needs vary from one family to another.”

As a result, some families have their children work in order to fulfill those needs.

Among them is Abdulhamid, who jostles between street vendors at the entrance to Domiz selling all manner of goods, from cigarettes to chewing gum, shouting “Mister! Mister!” at would-be clients.

The blond, blue-eyed, boy first says he is 14, before quickly revising that down to 12.

The youth drags along a portable refrigerator he brought from Qamishli, his hometown in northeast Syria, filled with lemon and cherry-flavored ice cream that he sells for 250 dinars (about 20 US cents) per serving.

“I work from about 8:00 am until sunset,” Abdulhamid says, estimating he earns about 10,000 Iraqi dinars (about $9) per day, virtually all of which is put towards buying medication for his ailing father.

While he did not specify the health problems afflicting his father, the boy is matter-of-fact about his circumstances.

“Where I am from, there is war,” he says, visibly irritated at being interrupted while working. “Here, if I went to school, I would not be able to earn money.”

“I have no choice,” he adds. “I have to earn a living.”

Source: now.mmedia.me

UN: Syria death toll more than 93,000

June 13, 2013 by AFP

More than 93,000 people, including over 6,500 children, have been killed in Syria’s civil war, which has grown increasingly deadly over the past year, a United Nations study said on Thursday.

The skyrocketing death toll, along with documented cases of children tortured and entire families massacred, “is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become,” UN rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement.

Describing the killing as “senseless carnage” Pillay said that the UN’s latest toll figure “is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher.”

The number of people killed in the two-year conflict has skyrocketed over the past year, with the average monthly toll since July 2012 standing at more than 5,000, compared with 1,000 in the summer of 2011, the study said.

“This extremely high rate of killings, month after month, reflects the drastically deteriorating pattern of the conflict over the past year,” Pillay said, adding that nearly 27,000 people have been killed since December 2012 alone.

“Civilians are bearing the brunt of widespread, violent and often indiscriminate attacks which are devastating whole swathes of major towns and cities, as well as outlying villages,” she added.

The study, running from the outbreak of the conflict in March 2011 to the end of April this year, updates the toll of 60,000 which the UN gave in a November 2012 document.

The latest study underlined the extent to which the violence has spiraled since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which began as peaceful protests and degenerated into a civil war.

Pillay slammed both sides, pointing to government shelling and air attacks on urban areas, and the rebels’ pounding of residential areas, albeit with less fire power, and bombings in the heart of cities, notably the capital Damascus.

Some 82.6 percent of the documented victims were male, while 7.6 percent were female, and the gender was not indicated in the remaining cases.

The analysis was not able to differentiate consistently between combatants and non-combatants, and around three-quarters of the reported killings did not record the victim’s age.

But the deaths of at least 6,561 children — 1,729 of them under 10 years old — were documented.

“There are also well-documented cases of individual children being tortured and executed, and entire families, including babies, being massacred — which, along with this devastatingly high death toll, is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become,” said Pillay.

“I urge the parties to declare an immediate ceasefire before tens of thousands more people are killed or injured,” she said, urging the international community to step up peace efforts.

“Nobody is gaining anything from this senseless carnage.”

Source: now.mmedia.me

Syria: Attacks on schools endanger students

London, June 6, 2013

The Syrian government has interrogated students and carried out violent assaults on their protests and military attacks on schools, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.Both government forces and opposition armed groups have used schools as military bases, barracks, detention centers, and sniper posts, turning places of learning into military targets and putting students at risk.

The 33-page report, “Safe No More: Students and Schools under Attack in Syria,” is based on more than 70 interviews, including with 16 students and 11 teachers who fled Syria, primarily from Daraa, Homs, and greater Damascus. The report documents the use of schools for military purposes by both sides. It also describes how teachers and state security agents interrogated and beat students for alleged anti-government activity, and how security forces andshabiha, pro-government militias, assaulted peaceful student demonstrations. In several instances reported to Human Rights Watch, government forces fired on school buildings that were not being used for military purposes.

“Syrian children have had to face things in the horrors of war that no child should have to bear – interrogated, targeted, and attacked,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Schools should be havens, but in a country that once valued schooling, many Syrian children aren’t even getting basic education and are losing out on their future.”

More than two years into Syria’s brutal conflict, children have lost months or years of education. At least one in five Syrian schools no longer functions, with thousands of schools destroyed, damaged, or sheltering people fleeing violence, according to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Many more schools are harboring fighters or military units.

Syrian government agents, including teachers, have conducted interrogations, arrests, and raids at six schools in Daraa, Homs, and greater Damascus, leading students to be afraid to go to school and to stay home, Human Rights Watch said. Teachers and school officials have interrogated students about their political views and alleged anti-government activities and those of their families, and in some cases beat students who engaged in anti-government activities.

Abdou, who attended fourth grade classes in Homs until May 2012, said that his math teacher asked him if his father kept a gun at home, and whether his family watched news channels that covered government abuses. When the teacher learned that Abdou had participated in an anti-government protest, she sent him to the school principal, who beat him five times with a rubber hose, he said.

Students, parents, and teachers told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed government security forces and militia assaulting or even shooting at peaceful student demonstrations and marches, in some cases injuring students. “They threw me on the ground [when they attacked our demonstration], but I managed to get away,” said Somaya, a 14-year-old girl from Damascus. “They shot at us. One girl got shot in her hand…. All the girls ran.”

In combat zones, the Syrian armed forces have committed apparent laws of war violations by conducting ground and air attacks on schools not being used for military purposes, Human Rights Watch said. In mid-2012 government forces and militias fired on schools in Daraa while students were inside. Government forces also have conducted at least two aerial attacks on school buildings in northern Syria.

Salma, a 14-year-old girl from Daraa, told Human Rights Watch that government forces fired on her school twice in mid-2012 while school was in session: “When the tank entered the school [grounds], it hit the walls of the school with machine guns,” she said. “So students got down [on the ground] to shelter. We spent half an hour or an hour there underneath our desks [before we could go home].” No one reported opposition fighters in the school at the time.

Both government forces and opposition armed groups have occupied schools and used them as command posts, barracks, detention centers, and for other military purposes, endangering children’s safety and right to education, Human Rights Watch said.

Government forces positioned snipers on the roofs of at least two schools in the Damascus governorate, one of which was still in session. Both sides have deployed their forces in schools, including some still functioning, making the schools military targets and placing students and school officials at risk.

“Both government forces and opposition armed groups have a responsibility to protect children’s lives and their right to education,” Motaparthy said. “By using schools for military purposes, they are putting children in harm’s way and destroying their hopes for their future.”

Before Syria’s uprising began in March 2011, about 93 percent of all eligible children were enrolled in primary education, and 67 percent in secondary education, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics. Approximately 95 percent of the population between 15 and 24 could read.

Local civilian councils and activist groups have started improvised schools and community schools in areas where government schools were destroyed or where it is no longer safe to attend and in opposition-controlled areas. Communities have located these schools in mosques and in private homes. However, they lack school supplies and teaching materials, as well as adequate teachers, and require greater support from donor governments and humanitarian groups both to continue these programs and to strengthen their curriculum, pay teachers, and reach more students.

“Emergency and remedial education assistance is vital so children can continue their education during the armed conflict,” Motaparthy said. “Concerned governments and the UN Security Council should do all they can to make sure educational aid reaches Syrian children wherever the aid is needed.”

Source: hrw.org

Bombing kills 15, including 9 children, in Aleppo - #Syria

A bombing the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud in Aleppo has left at least 15 people dead.

Nine children were among at least 15 people killed in an air strike on a majority Kurdish district in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, a watchdog said.

“The number of people killed in an air strike on the western edges of Sheikh Maksoud has risen to 15… Among them were nine children aged under 18 years and three women,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Kurdish sources from the neighborhood have told the Observatory the number of fatalities may rise, as several people have suffered critical injuries,” added the Britain-based watchdog.

It is unclear whether any of the casualties were fighters from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Syria’s branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Observatory said.

Reports of the strike come days into fierce fighting pitting Kurdish fighters against troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the arrival of Syrian rebels in the neighborhood, the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The area targeted by the air strike is under control the PYD’s control, he said.

“We can see a clear drive by the army to attack the Kurds in recent days. The PYD is being dragged by the army into Syria’s conflict,” he added.

Up until now, Syria’s Kurds have been split over Syria’s bloody revolt, with most trying to maintain neutrality.

Amateur video shot in the neighborhood and distributed by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grass roots network of activists, showed burnt bodies lying in rubble.

The footage was reportedly filmed in the strike’s aftermath.

A second video showed a black cloud of smoke and flames rising above the presumed site of the strike.

Women can be heard screaming, while an unidentified cameraman says: “Right next to the PKK’s checkpoint, there’s corpses on the ground. Bring vehicles for the casualties, quick.”

The same video shows a woman scream out as she picks up the body of a young girl from the ground. It also shows the body of a boy lying next to a metal fence as residents rush to place several other children’s bodies on the back of a pick-up truck.

Elsewhere in Syria, the air force targeted Al-Hajar al-Aswad in southern Damascus and Qadam in the southwest, said the watchdog, which relies on a broad network of doctors, lawyers and activists for its reports.

Al-Hajar al-Aswad was also struck by mortar rounds and rockets, activists in the capital said.

Warplanes also raided Yabrud near Damascus and Qusayr in the central province of Homs, as tanks shelled rebel enclaves in Homs city.

In Damascus, mortar rounds hit Baramkeh in the heart of the city, said the Observatory, as rebels pressed their campaign to break into the regime’s key bastion.

Saturday’s violence comes a day after at least 94 people were killed across the country — 32 civilians, 36 rebels fighters and 26 soldiers — according to an Observatory count.

The UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria’s war, which broke out after the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent, turning a peaceful uprising into a bloody insurgency.

NOW - 04/06/2013

Source: afp.com

29 Jan 2013 Living in a tomb: #Syria’s children hide in Roman ruins from the modern war machine

Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Photo: ITV News/ Sean Swann

ITV News has returned to one of the once dead cities of Syria, abandoned thousands of years ago.

But it has come alive again, as a bolt-hole for families forced to flee the civil war.

Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Credit: ITV News/ Sean Swann

More than two months since our first visit, more children and their parents are taking shelter from the Assad regime, amongst the Roman ruins.

ITV News International Correspondent John Irvine has returned to the caves of Serjilla in the north west of Syria:

The ruins are now home to many refugees hiding from the fightingThe ruins are now home to many refugees hiding from the fighting Credit: ITV News/ Sean Swann

Source: itv.com

Children killed in #Syria bombardment in Hazzeh, East of Damascus

Shelling on Sunday targeting the town of Hazzeh east of Damascus killed at least nine people including a number of children, a watchdog said, as the Syrian regime pressed its offensive against rebels.

Warplanes also pounded rebel zones on the outskirts of Damascus and in the northern province of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added, giving a preliminary death toll of 28 for Sunday.

“At least nine civilians, many of them children, were killed in shelling on the Hazzeh area of Eastern Ghouta,” it said.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that he was unable to immediately confirm how many children had been killed in the artillery attack, but “at least two of the victims were aged under four years.”

Amateur video posted on the Internet by Hazzeh-based activists showed a young man carrying the bloodied body of a young boy away from the site of the attack.

The grisly footage also showed other victims lying in the mud. At least two of the bodies shown in the video were those of children.

According to the Observatory, more than 3,500 children have been killed in Syria since the outbreak in March 2011 of a peaceful uprising that morphed into an insurgency after President Bashar al-Assad’s cracked down hard on dissent.

News of the Hazzeh attack came hours after warplanes bombarded Sfeireh in Aleppo province, as well as Daraya, southwest of Damascus, the monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers inside Syria, also reported fierce clashes between rebels and the army in Daraya and in the Barzeh district of northern Damascus.

Violence around the capital has been on the rise since the army last July launched an offensive against rebels who had moved into several neighborhoods.

Analysts say the regime is attempting to secure an area of control in a radius of about eight kilometers around the city.

Sunday’s violence follows a day in which 95 people—33 civilians, 39 rebel fighters and 23 soldiers—were killed nationwide, the Observatory said.

The United Nations says that more than 60,000 people have been killed over the past nearly 22 months of the conflict in Syria.

01/13/2013

Source: afp.com