In the far north, at the last part of Syrian territory in Jarablus countryside, fate and agreements chose for this location to be the camp for the forcefully displaced of al-Waer neighborhood. Camp residents face harsh environmental conditions, incomplete camp infrastructure, and extortion from local tradesmen. These circumstances led many to question why they left al-Waer.
Zaman al-Wasl reached the camp and met some of the residents before Jarablus local council, which oversees the camp, prevented Zaman al-Wasl from undertaking further meetings with the camp residents. The local council justified its action on the basis AFAD, the Turkish state Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, which sponsors the camp refuses to allow such meetings.
Zaman al-Wasl brought the issue to the attention of Turkish officials, who stressed that there are no reasons or orders preventing journalists from entering the camp. However, the officials explained that the organization is still completing the camp preparations as it is a new camp, and it does not want images appearing showing the current incomplete nature of the camp.
Life appears very harsh for the al-Homs’ residents living in this camp. They are subject to the elements, as sandstorms scatter their tents and the high temperatures forces everyone to use the tents as roofs protecting them from the sun.
“We did not expect to live in such camps,” said one of the camp residents to Zaman al-Wasl. He continued explaining that the camp residents are being extorted by locals. He said that prices doubled with the arrival of the first round of displaced people from Homs and the house prices in Jarablus city are astronomical making it almost impossible for anyone to leave the camp.
“If only we had not come, this is not a life,” he added. While AFAD is trying to complete the camps, local merchants are extorting the newly arrived. They see the camp as an opportunity to make quick money, and with the first arrivals, merchants set up small stalls close to the camp selling vegetables at different prices.
Ibrahim, a child who came to the camp with his only relative, his disabled aunt, said to Zaman al-Wasl, “I am only eating and drinking with my aunt. I am not doing anything and I own nothing in life. I do not know what to do the next day… By God it was better in al-Waer neighborhood.”
Some 8,000 Syrian opposition fighters and residents of al-Waer neighborhood, the last revolutionary stronghold in the city of Homs, were forcefully displaced from the neighborhood by an agreement signed between the neighborhood committee and the al-Assad regime under the auspices of Russia.
So far six rounds of forcefully displaced have left al-Waer neighborhood heading for Jarablus and al-Bab in Aleppo’s countryside. Idlib has also received hundreds of the displaced
