Aleppans Who Fled Explosive Barrels Sleep in Turkish Border Town Bus Station

Aref Haj Youssef

NOTE: This story was amended on February 17, 2014.

(Kilis, Turkey) – The staggering numbers of refugees in the Turkish city of Kilis, on the border with Syria, are hard to miss. Escaping from the explosive barrels being dropped on Aleppo by regime forces, their makeshift bedding is everywhere: in mosques, in parks and in the bus station.

Their exhausted faces are maps of all the pain they’ve had to endure on their journeys here, carrying all they were able to take from their houses as they left them behind.

Abu Ahmad, a resident of the Ansari neighbourhood, one of the many in Aleppo that was subject to bombardment, was able to escape with his wife. They’ve set out their bedding on the floor of the bus station—or “the garage,” as most of the Syrians call it—a mere kilometre from the border. Abu Ahmad is waiting for the rest of his family to cross over.

“My sons and daughters have been stuck at the border for two days, while my wife and I sit here waiting for them,” he said.

Abdel Ahad, a blind father of seven, could find no shelter but the bus station to take his family in. He describes the circumstances under which they fled from Aleppo.

“We were in the Salihin neighbourhood and we ran away under a barrage of exploding barrels,” he says. “My eldest son is still in Aleppo because he wasn’t home when we escaped, and we have no one here in Turkey. We’ve been here for two nights so far, waiting for a respite from God.”

Since the escalation of the daily air raids on opposition-controlled Eastern Aleppo on January 19, many residents have fled the area altogether. Some sought shelter on the other side of the city, the half controlled by the regime, while others fled to the countryside, also subject to shelling and witness to heavy battles between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other armed factions. But a large number of the residents from the targeted areas in Aleppo have escaped to the Turkish-Syrian border, attempting to enter illegally, because the Turkish authorities have been preventing passage to anyone without identity papers. The numbers of those waiting on the Syrian side of the border are in the thousands, as reported by some eyewitnesses who have managed the crossing.

Before the intensification of the air raids and shelling, the Eastern half of Aleppo was home to over a million and a half people. The area was rarely quiet, but previously, the shelling was not nearly so violent as to drive people in the thousands away from their jobs and homes.

Abu Abdo is standing at the station, waiting for the bus that will take him to Istanbul to go live with his son. He can hardly find words to describe the violence he escaped.

“I’ve just now come from Aleppo! People might think I’m exaggerating, but what’s happening there now is a real humanitarian disaster, in every sense of the word. It’s a ghost town,” he said.

“I will tell the truth even if it costs me my life,” he added. “Both sides [of the conflict] are responsible for what is happening to the innocent civilians.”

For more than two weeks, there have been around 300 people staying at the Kilis bus station. By night, the women and children stay inside, where it is relatively warmer than outside, where the men sleep on concrete pavements and grass. Despite these difficult conditions, Shahed, 7, her childish laugh tinged with some embarrassment, says that she far prefers living in the “garage” than in her home in Aleppo.

“I feel happier here and I don’t want to go back,” she said. “[In Aleppo] there’s shelling and warplanes.”

The local camp, which houses about 15,000 Syrians, has stopped accepting any more refugees.

Outside the bus station, a long line of Syrian refugees queue in order to obtain a lunch portion, served out by Turkish government volunteers. The meal consists of Turkish bread, a small amount of rice, and some white beans. One of the men standing in line expresses his pleasure at being able to secure some food for his family.

The cost of living in Turkey means that those refugees of low economic means are unable to pay the price of a single family meal in a restaurant, which can cost up to 18 US dollars. Most of the Syrians who fled to Kilis before the latest exodus live on a monthly allowance of around 67 dollars or even less, and some of them live only on food rations handed out by neighbourhood officials.

Many of the refugees who were unable to find shelter in Kilis crossed the border again, in the opposite direction, trying to find a new home in the refugee camps near the Bab al-Salama border crossing.

The Bab al-Salama refugee camp has also been struggling with the flow of refugees. A new camp was started in early February about five kilometres away, at an area called Shummarin.

A Syrian aid worker who went by the name Abul Rim described the conditions at the Bab al-Salama refugee camp.

“The services are absolutely terrible,” he said. “There is no water, no electricity, and the tents are very old and falling apart. Today, 800 new people arrived at the camp and most probably they’ll be forced to sleep outside for one night or two, at the doors of the camp, before their turn comes to enter.”