Sarah Essa
Syria is one of the most complex humanitarian crises in the world today. Since March 2011, over a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and over one million have been injured. 4.8 million Syrians have been forced to leave the country, and 6.5 million are internally displaced, making Syria the largest displacement crisis globally, according to OCHA .
Unsurprisingly, many civilians flee in fear for their lives – due to the extensive arbitrary displacement - directly caused by “indiscriminate and disproportionate aerial bombardment and shelling” of civilian-inhabited areas by the Syrian regime forces .
Salwa, from the Palestinian refugee camp " Al Yarmouk" was forced to the flee the camp with her family in 2012 , when the Syrian regime intensified its shelling of the area , she says: " we knew we had to leave, we feared a darker fate like what happened in "Al Zattar " refugee camp in Lebanon , back in the eighties" , and she was right , as regime forces tightened a suffocating siege on the area in 2013 , as if history repeats itself, to force those who didn’t flee to die or surrender.
Systematic and deliberate displacement is one of the tools used by Assad, for demographic change to create geographic areas with more homogenous populations, and the countryside of the capital Damascus tops the list of displaced people , where the number exceeded 2.2 million people, and neighborhoods of the capital have had the highest percentage of displacement due to the broad and systematic destruction of these areas, starting with Eastern Ghoutta, Darya , Harasta, Jobar, Qaboun, , Barzeh, Muadamiyat al-Sham, Zabadani , Yarmouk camp , Al Hajar Al Aswad, Yalda and other places , which are now semi-free zones as a result of the siege and constant shelling by regime forces .
And according to local activists , these areas were totally destroyed and apartment blocks were reduced to rubble, not only because they are considered the incubators of resistance against Assad's tyranny, but to be the path for future real estate investments for the regime , because systematic displacement had been taking place even before 2011 , especially in areas like " Basateen al -Mezzeh " near the capital , where families had been uprooted from their lands in order for the government to start residential projects worth of millions .
Yassen from Basateen Al Mezzeh , says: " regime soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles stormed our area in 2012 and killed a lot of people including children , forced many families to leave, and demolished the houses and burned orchards".
Homs , and other Syrian cities have their share of devastation too , and like many other places in Syria, Bashar al-Assad's militias had been "cleansing" towns and villages of their Sunni Muslim inhabitants across the Syrian province of Homs, Osama from "old Homs" says : " they gave us every reason to leave: killing , raping, shelling ,and even looting our houses " .
The world is preoccupied with the Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries and Europe , but has given no attention to the millions of internally displaced Syrians, especially that a large percentage of their homes have been destroyed almost completely, lost their jobs, their businesses, and have become a burden on others, where 5 or more families live under one roof , because these people have ran out of their savings and it's impossible for them to afford the rental prices which have tripled since the beginning of the crisis, not to mention the new wave of homelessness that swept the Syrian cities - of people who found themselves out of the sudden- with no money , no relatives or shelter to ease their suffering .
These displaced inside Syria, had to leave their homes since staying has become an impossible choice, and some of them have been displaced multiple times , and due to the almost complete closure of borders of neighboring countries , these people remain in extreme peril , enduring exhausting circumstances and sheer devastation with little hope of returning home.
