IDPs turn into refugees in the wee hours of the night.. crossing into the unknown.

Jandi Khalidi

Far northeast of Syria, in a village on the border with Kurdistan region of Iraq, it was difficult to know the numbers or names of people hiding in various houses, while they were awaiting a signal from the smuggler to follow the diaspora.

“The road is excellent,” the smuggler said in confidence, but certainly that is not the reality.

We are inside a bus driving behind the smuggler’s vehicle which drives briskly along dirt and winding roads, roads which are clear of military checkpoints, except one.

“Where are you going?” An SDF fighter asks.

“To the village, Saba’ Jafar, to visit our relatives,” the driver taking us towards the border answers.

“God be with you,” the SDF fighter says.

The bus driver follows the smuggler’s instructions after receiving a phone call: “drive forward and go after the motorbike.”

One feels himself living the details of a detective novel. Despite the tension, it is difficult to hide one’s admiration for such careful planning by people you would meet in everyday life.

A young man wearing a gown with a red hat on his head leads us to the village, or what is called the “operations center”. After we cross rough roads, we are well received as we enter a clean room. Our bags are brought and put in front of us. They warn us: “Nobody goes out, please. There are patrols.”

The Turkish aggression against Rojava, which began on October 9 through a military operation targeting the cities of Serê Kaniyê (Ras Al-Ain), Girê Sipî (Tal Abyad) and other areas along the Turkish-Syrian border such as Qamishlo and Dêrik among other cities, caused the most severe displacement of people in this region since the advent of the Syrian crisis in 2011. The number of IDPs to Hasaka and Tel Tamr has exceeded 250,000, while the number of people fleeing to the Kurdistan region of Iraq has reached more than 15,000, according to official statistics from the self-administration of northeast Syria.

Smugglers usually wait for evening to move towards the dirt berms which separates the Kurdistan region of Iraq and the far northeast of Syria.

$250 – 300 is the amount the smuggler receives in advance, before we enter his house and close his front door. Then we wait for hours until evening comes. The smuggler serves us a meal and then a cup of tea as two women are tending to all the house chores. There is no chance to have a long chat with the women whether they are the smuggler’s wives or not. The amount of money the smuggler asks to smuggle a child is half the amount for adults.

We hear noises outside, but we are not able to go outside or look around through the windows to see what is going on. After we reach the next border, we discover that we are not the only ones there. In every house in that village, there may be families you know, but you can not see them until time has passed.

Finally, it is dark and three lead us on a road, one of them carrying a night telescope and taking a look through it from time to time. The others carry the bags of old people for an extra fee as well as bags for those carrying their children and unable to carry their own bags. We follow the instructions, walking in the dark on winding roads with a group we do not know, while we can not see them at all in the dark. On the way, as we walk without being able to see anything, we hear only the breathing of these breathless people, the cries of children, the whispering of the guide giving us orders angrily as we flee to the unknown. Looking around, we see lights not far off and ask ourselves, “How can they not see us on this flat earth?”

The guide gets angry, shouting at the refugees for walking too slowly, threatening to turn back, but people plead with him to continue. Forty-five minutes of walking, sometimes jogging, are enough to make us sweat as we carry our bags, while holding the hands of children from the family accompanying us. “The barricade is ahead, we are done here, we will go back.” This was the last sentence the guide said.

No one expected this barricade would be the same trench dug in 2014 by the Kurdistan Regional Government for security and defensive reasons against attacks by ISIS, a trench 1050 km in length, from Shengal at the Iraqi-Syrian border to the north of Wasit province on the Iraqi-Iranian border in the east.

In the dark, you can not anticipate the height and depth of the trench, as you must climb a hill of dusy before descending into the ditch hole with its deep slope before climbing once again. It would have been nearly impossible if the crossing had been in the daytime, as you would not dare go down so deep or go up to such an altitude, except in the dark where you see nothing, and darkness alone hides the sudden horror. Two members of the Peshmerga forces are at the other end of the barricade, and they came down to the trench and help the children and women out. After sitting a little while in the hands of the Peshmerga, we are surprised by the number of people gathered who had preceded us by minutes, and we are surprised when we are taken to a military base near Al-Waleed crossing door, to find that we are among more than 500 refugees on this night alone. 

After Al-Walid Point square is filled with refugees, we receive meals and drinking water, and our data is recorded. Crossing in this way has a price, and not everyone is able to pass this night test. A fifty-year-old man broke his back in the trench while another man broke his leg, and another old man began to shake and was unable to move anymore.

At 2:00 a.m, the last group is moved to a near mosque as sleeping space was no longer available at the military base. By morning hours, exhausted refugees scheduled to meet with UNHCR staff had completed the registration procedure. After lunch, 22 buses were ready to take people to Berda Resh camp, people who have become refugees after this long, difficult night.

Most who just entered the region did not expect the camp to be the place they would stay, but it was inevitable. Many families from Serê Kaniyê who fled to Hasaka as a result of the Turkish bombardment with only the clothes on their backs, end up in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. “We are among our cousins, do not be afraid, no matter what happens, you are safe here, there will be no warplanes bombing us here,” a mother of three was loudly telling her children.

Berda Resh camp, which means “Black Stone”, is located in the town Berda Resh in Ninewah Plain, which is tied to the province of Dohuk, located 70 km from the city of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region, and 32 km from Mosul. The camp, established in 2017, was re-equipped for residents of the Ninewah Plain during attacks on the city by ISIS.

The Barzani Charity Foundation BCF, accompanied by the Asayiş, receive arriving refugees, and, after recording their data again, direct them to a large hall filled with long tables for dinner. Despite the services provided by BCF and UNHCR, international and local organizations working in the region have not provided relief programs for the approximately 12,000 refugees living in the camp until the date of publishing this report on Nov. 19, 2019.