This article is a summary of Tim Ramadan’s(assumed name) post on The Guardian. He is a journalist and lives in Raqqa, Syria. Since the US-led international coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces launched a military operation until now, more than 1,300 civilians lose one’s life and the city of 70% has destroyed. The electricity and water were cut off and also run out of fuel and necessities in the city.
Residents who were in the city are waiting for ending the civil war in the situations of extreme fear and hunger. Residents share news of air strike and families who have been killed by yelling across to each other. Even walking the streets is difficult because of constant shelling. Half of those besieged in the city stay alive as eating grass and weeds that grow on the side of the road. People make soup out of these weeds and put dried-up bread to eat easier. The soup tastes extremely bitter and children feel nauseated when they taste the first time, but, now they get used to it. One day, a car from ISIS abandoned the four bodies and a sign and disappeared. The sign said, “They were killed because they tried to escape.”. The road out to escape is mined and in the line of sight of snipers. Mr.Tim finished the post as follows “I made a promise once to Naji al Jarf and Ibrahim Abdul Qadir, two journalist colleagues, that one day ISIS would be gone and that, on that day, I would stand in the city square and distribute sweets. Both journalists are dead, killed by ISIS, but I will stay to try to tell the stories of the 5,000 families still surviving in the city, for whom escaping is not an option.”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/raqqa-stealing-dead-civilians-electricity-water-food
APPA UN NGO Intern Minju Kim
Related UN Post:
Syria: UN adviser warns trapped civilians face greater risks as Raqqa fighting intensifies
