US-backed fighters have said they are keeping a corridor open to rescue remaining civilians from the last sliver of territory held by the Islamic State of\u00a0Iraq and the Levant (ISIL\u00a0or ISIS)\u00a0in\u00a0Syria,\u00a0as the\u00a0UN\u00a0appeals for urgent assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have evacuated nearly 5,000 men, women and children from the\u00a0holdout\u00a0in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz\u00a0since Wednesday,\u00a0bringing the\u00a0US-backed SDF closer to retaking the less than half a square kilometre still under ISIL control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘On our side, the corridor is open and we hope a larger number of civilians will arrive, but that depends on IS fighters and whether they will give civilians a chance to exit,’ SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin told the AFP news agency at their Al-Omar base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than four years after ISIL overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a ‘caliphate’, they have lost all but a tiny patch in Baghouz near the Iraqi border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some 2,000 people are believed to remain inside the village, according to the SDF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The force says it is trying to evacuate remaining civilians through a corridor before pressing on with a battle to crush ISIL unless the group’s holdout fighters surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afrin said the SDF had evacuated ‘more than 2,000 people, including women, children and men’ on Friday, mostly wives and children of ISIL fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, nearly 2,500 evacuees arrived at a Kurdish-run camp for the displaced further north, compounding already dire conditions inside the cramped settlement, the UN’s humanitarian coordination office OCHA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It warned of ‘huge challenges’ posed by the influx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SDF transferred those evacuated on Friday to a screening point outside Baghouz to weed out potential ISIL members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spokesman Mustefa Bali said a group of Yazidi children were ‘among many children saved’ from ISIL territory that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An AFP correspondent saw hundreds of women and children spread out on the arid desert ground, surrounded by bags, begging for food and water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One woman rushed towards an SDF fighter screaming, as she cradled a pale infant in her arms. The fighter assured that her child would be fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another woman claimed she was about to go into labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearby, an Iraqi woman in her forties wearing a face veil held in her hand a medical report in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said the report was written for her by a doctor inside the Baghouz pocket, explaining that she needed treatment for kidney problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syrian woman Khadija Ali Mohammad, the 24-year-old wife of a deceased ISIL fighter, said conditions inside the group’s remaining pocket of territory were deplorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘We were living in tents and eating bread made from bran. My three sisters and I didn’t have enough money to pay smugglers to get us out before, and our husbands had died in battle,’ the woman from Aleppo’s countryside in northern Syria told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was disappointed in the collapse of the ISIL proto-state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘God had promised us a caliphate and we went to it,’ she said. ‘I feel there will be no victory although they (ISIL) tell us victory is near.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 46,000 people, mostly civilians, have streamed out of ISIL’s shrinking territory since early December, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While civilians are trucked north to Kurdish-run camps for the displaced, mainly to Al-Hol, six hours drive from Baghouz, suspected ISIL members are sent to SDF-controlled detention centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OCHA said 18 of the 2,500 latest arrivals in Al-Hol, mostly women and children, were in ‘critical condition’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Thousands more are expected in coming hours\/days at Al-Hol camp, putting a further strain on basic services,’ it tweeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘This sudden influx presents huge challenges to the response – additional tents, non-food items, water and sanitation and health supplies are urgently needed.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Rescue Committee on Friday said 69 people, mostly children, died on the way to Al-Hol, now home to more than 40,000 of the displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Two-thirds of the deaths are of babies under one year old,’ the relief group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SDF says it has limited resources to administer camps and has called for support from the international community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US-backed fighters have said they are keeping a corridor open to rescue remaining civilians from the last sliver of territory held by the Islamic State of\u00a0Iraq and the Levant (ISIL\u00a0or ISIS)\u00a0in\u00a0Syria,\u00a0as the\u00a0UN\u00a0appeals for urgent assistance. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have evacuated nearly 5,000 men, women and children from the\u00a0holdout\u00a0in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz\u00a0since Wednesday,\u00a0bringing the\u00a0US-backed SDF… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3150,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions\/3150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}