A mass exodus of civilians in the last rebel-held stronghold in Syria has begun, with thousands of people fleeing toward the Turkish border in the face of a fierce new military assault by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies.
As many as 30,000 people have left the area around the town of Maarat al-Numan after four days of airstrikes and heavy shelling paved the way for Syrian government troops to push deeper into northwestern Idlib Province.
Maarat al-Numan sits on the strategic M5 Highway, which al-Assad is determined to recapture to reopen the route linking the capital Damascus with the city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest.
Photo: Reuters
Airstrikes and shelling in the past few days have meant that the road — the major escape route for civilians fleeing north — has also become a hazardous option.
Attacks continued on Tuesday, despite a supposed humanitarian pause in the fighting.
Those who can afford the fuel have been fleeing in cars, motorbikes and flatbed trucks, often taking no more than what they can carry.
“The war planes were targeting the M5 with missiles and heavy machine guns the whole way. I don’t know how we made it alive — we are so lucky,” said Ammar Karkas, 29, a father of two who left Maarat al-Numan on Monday. “Two cars carrying displaced people just 2km behind us were targeted and five people were burned alive. If we’d been a little bit later, we would have been killed in the same airstrike.”
Monitors and witnesses said that at least 12 civilians this week have been killed on the road as Russian and Syrian air force jets have targeted civilian convoys.
The new fighting comes despite a September agreement by the leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran to recommit to de-escalation efforts in the area.
At least 100 people have been killed since the ground offensive began last week, including five children who died after missiles hit a school sheltering displaced people in the village of Jobas on Tuesday.
Maarat al-Numan, an important early center of Syria’s 2011 revolution, now resembles a ghost town, resident Rami al-Maari said.
The town was expected to fall to the regime imminently.
“Last night in my neighborhood an airstrike destroyed 20 houses. The shelling is continuous. They want to kill civilians or force them to leave,” the 23-year-old said. “My family doesn’t want to leave our house to go live in terrible conditions in a camp on the border, but if the soldiers get any closer, we will have to leave, because we are wanted by the regime and we are afraid of being arrested. In both scenarios, we are dead.”
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